The Supernovas
by A.Fox
Summary: A single death sets in motion a sequence of events, forcing several heroes to unite in order to halt a grand catastrophe in which the fate of the world hangs in the balance. co-authored by Grimm Gun
1. Arc 1 Part 1:One of those nights

(disclaimer, I do NOT own the rights to anything, in this story)

Metro City, 6:53pm

As clichéd as this may sound, it is the truth, and the truth is that our story unfolds on a dark and stormy night. The scene is the warmly lit den and homemade crime lab combination at the home of a man recognized facially by a rather large nose and upturned cowlicks in his hair on either side of his head. This was the Metro City Police Department's shining star, the clockwork copper, the peerless pry, the one, the only, Inspector Gadget.

Currently Gadget was seated at his den table, sans the coat and hat since he was at home. He sat with a rather extensive chemistry set laid out before him, along with several other items that were clues to a case that Gadget was currently handling. The items had already received the once over by the Metro PD's crime lab boys and now Gadget was taking his shot. For some reason, he just couldn't understand it, he knew in his gut that the CEO had been murdered by his jealous and greedy wife, but all evidence pointed to his mistress, who also happened to be his cleaning lady, hence the reason she would have access to the chemicals that were used to kill him. It was all very frustrating.

It was at that time he heard a knock on his den door. Gadget spun round in his chair to see a young girl bordering on womanhood with big blue eyes and flawless blonde hair, it was his niece, Penny. She was a sweet kid, even though at her age now she had chosen to forgo the pigtails that had characterized her in her youth. She smiled at him and stuffed her hands in her pockets, she doted on him, she really did, even though he asks her not to, she does so anyway, and that was one of the great things about her.

"Hey Uncle Gadget," Penny started, leaning against the doorway, "I'm going to go pick up Brain from the vet now, so dinner's going to be a little late, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, no problem," the inspector said with a smile.

"In the meantime, you haven't eaten in a day or so, so make sure you get something to snack on, okay?"

"Well I don't know, Penny," his smile fading at an order that would take him away from his work, "I'm really stuck on this case and I don't think I could spare the time. Besides, I'm not hungry."

"You never get hungry anymore," Penny reminded him, "That's the problem. Listen Uncle Gadget, we've been over this a hundred times, you have very few natural organs left, and we're supposed to take care of them. So we'd be doing a rather poor job if we let them suffer from malnutrition. So would you please-"

"Okay, okay, I get the message. I'll grab a bite to eat while you're out."

"You promise?"

"Scout's honor," Gadget said, placing two fingers to his head in the classic Eagle Scout's Salute.

"Okay, I'm leaving now, so don't forget-"

"To eat something, I got ya."

"I mean it, do it or else," Penny finished, walking off.

"Ooh, I'm shaking in my loafers," Gadget said whispered sarcastically, so Penny wouldn't hear.

He turned back to the table, and instead of the various beakers and test-tubes arrayed around him, that were either empty or filled with various chemicals, the main attraction for Gadget's attention was the small Petri dish in front of him. It's contents were the coffee pumped from the dead CEO's stomach in autopsy, however, it had become undeniably clear to all looking into the case that there was more than just his favorite brand of French blend in his cup on that fateful day. The inspector looked down at the chemical mix, taking another view of the deadly cocktail to, hoping to see if there was anything he'd missed.

He closed one eye, and said the magic words, or at least his version of them. "Go go Gadget microscope." Instantly, his vision started to shift and zoom in rapidly, the inspector soon found himself viewing the contents of the dish at the microscopic level. Now as amazing as this would seem to you or me, to Inspector Gadget, who had viewed the dish at least fifty times within the hour, it was old news. He viewed all of the elements in the dish; coffee, cream, sugar, the CEO's widow's spit, almond oil, and mostly importantly, cleaning chemicals which was confirmed to be what killed the CEO.

It was the chemicals that had Gadget baffled. From the surveillance tapes, it showed that after the CEO guzzled half his coffee, he began to convulse from violent seizures, he fell sprawling to the floor, foam beginning to form at the mouth. From there, he lay twitching on the floor like a dying bug, until the blood in his veins had finally stopped flowing to his heart, after which he logically died. Now here's the strange part, when the poison started to take effect, he did not call for help. That "did not" changed to a "could not", as due to the fact that the doctors had concluded that the CEO's throat had swollen and closed shut, a reaction brought on by the CEO's acute allergy to almond nuts, hence the significance of the almond oil in his coffee cup. Signs of an allergic reaction were noticed in the surveillance tapes as in the moments prior to the seizures, the CEO had begun to cough as though his throat was sore and itchy.

The man kept his coffee machine, with all the proper fixings, in his office. There were two instances where the poison could've been added, when the cup was concealed from the cameras by the two prime suspects; his mistress and his wife now widow. Yet, there was no feasible point at which the almond oil could've been added. When the widow had her time with the cup, mere moments before she and her husband had yet another in a long line of arguments. She claimed that the only ingredient which she added to the steamy brew was her spit, a story which was verified when the man was literally pumped for evidence. That left his mistress, the janitor.

She too had her time with the man's as of yet undrunk coffee, when he chased after his enraged wife to try to console her. It was the cleaning lady's scheduled time to clean up the office, her weapon of choice being the Wipe-Whip cleaning solution which came in a spray bottle, making this a possible manslaughter, as the janitor woman had been cited before for using overly large amounts of the Wipe-Whip spray when cleaning, the Wipe-Whip solution containing all the same deadly chemicals as were found in the man's coffee, minus the almond oil. The matter was pushed from manslaughter to premeditated murder when it was revealed that she had stopped taking pills to help control her rage, which had gotten her in trouble on more than one occasion, as well as the fact that she informed the police that he was leaving her.

The use of almond oil was the key in all this, as the CEO's mistress had no prior knowledge of her lover's keen allergy to almonds, therefore she could not couldn't have intentionally been able to use it as a chemical gag for when he had begun to die.

"Ah, damn it," The inspector mumbled. During his perusing of the Petri dish's content's, his hand had slipped, knocking a few drops of evidence onto his table. His dismay came from the fact that unless he acted quickly, the table would be forever stained. Fortunately, he had a can of Almond-Away which should-

"Almond-Away! That's it!" Inspector Gadget exclaimed. Almond-Away, was made by the same people that made Wipe-Whip, as such having many chemical similarities with it's predecessor. The crack detective made a swift break for the kitchen and returned with the aerosol spray can of Almond-Away. He sprayed the contents of the can into a second Petri dish, and then viewed the contents. The contents of the Almond-Away dish, with coffee, cream, sugar, and spittle aside, had the exact same chemical composition as the first Petri dish, almond oil included.

The relevance of this is; while the CEO's mistress was a user of Wipe-Whip, his wife was a firm student in the ways of Almond-Away, she had stated as such when Gadget interrogated her in her luxurious home. He had commented on how spic and span her kitchen, when, true to the TV advertisements, she admitted that the secret to all this was Almond-Away. Now whilst this preference to cleaning materials was not nearly enough to make a conviction, the fact that Mr. dead CEO's office trash was taken in as evidence does.

During wifey's time in the office, she had removed a half empty bottle of ear medicine from her purse, ear medicine which she kept in her hand from the moment it left the purse to when she threw the bottle into the trash just before leaving, never using the medicine on her ear once. One of the moments in between the medicine's removal to it's disposal was the ever famous coffee spitting scene. The bottle currently sat in the evidence locker down at the station, and he was willing to bet the farm that if someone were to take a peek inside that bottle, the contents of it would be none other than that almond fresh cleanliness formula; Almond-Away. And just like that the case was busted wide open.

Inspector Gadget sat back smugly in his chair, propping his feet on the table, making sure not to hit any of the important glass instruments which were in kicking distance of the man's feet. He'd call the lab boys in the morning and have his theory looked into, which the following morning upon it's being looked into, would prove that, once again, the great Inspector Gadget was right all along.

"And to think," Gadget said, beginning to reminisce, "I used to be a bumbling idiot and Penny was the ace detective. Funny how things change."

He felt that it was an occasion for a bit of celebration was in order, and that a surprise guest star for dinner was just the ticket. An old friend, for whom a visit was long overdue, Penny was going to love the idea.

Little under half an hour later, the scene shifts to the luxurious Cinderella Towers apartment complex, where Gadget was pulling up in the Gadgetmobile Mk. II, the obsolete and disobedient first model having been handed down to Penny quite some time ago. If Gadget were to say a person were responsible for making him the man he was today, and have it be a literal translation, the only people he could say that about would be his mother, his father, and a Dr. Brenda Bradford, the woman who's penthouse apartment he was on his way to see now.

It was this genius who, along with the remnants of her father's life's work, took security guard John Brown's broken, burnt, and near dead body from the vestiges of his wrecked and blown up car, turning the half dead mess into the almost unstoppable fighting force for truth and justice he is today, known to the world as Inspector Gadget. He always had a soft spot for Brenda, he probably always would. If Penny was his keeper, then Brenda was his maker, along with various other things. And while it's true that they'd since split apart and their relationship went circling down the drain years ago, she still made upgrades for his body, and personally designed the Gadgetmobile Mk. II to suit his more professional needs, and was **still** a much welcomed face to the Gadget table at Christmas and Thanksgiving. It'd been some time since he last saw her, seven months to be more exact, he last saw her at his annual tune-up/check-up, so meeting up unexpectedly should be a real treat, it was only a couple of days ago that Penny commented how much she missed Brenda.

Gadget emerged from the Gadgetmobile, now wearing his trademark trench coat and fedora, and made a beeline for the door. The doorman asked the inspector if he should call the valet for his car.

"No thanks, I've got it covered," Gadget replied with a smirk, as the Gadgetmobile went into autodrive and rolled off to find it's own parking space.

Gadget was so pleased with himself that he actually found himself tapping his toes and whistling to the tune of the elevator as it made it's grand ascent to the top floor. The elevator doors opened onto a hallway which ended in two doors, one being Brenda's apartment, the other belonging to a different obscenely rich person who could afford a penthouse rent. Having much care and concern for one and little to none for the other, Gadget made his way down to Brenda's door, taking out his badge, Brenda **loved** the "you're under arrest" entrance.

The inspector placed his knuckles in front of the door and placed his badge in front of the peephole, then…

**Knock. Knock.**

From there he waited for the traditional…

"Who's there?" came a voice from behind the door.

"It's the police," Gadget said in a gruff voice, the disguise never really working, "and we have a report that-"

Gadget never got to finish his sentence, as the door flew open and he was yanked into the apartment by his tie. The tail of his coat barely made it through the threshold before the door snapped shut once more, several clicks ringing through the otherwise quiet apartment as the door locks bolted the entryway shut. There was something wrong and Gadget knew it.

He was about to jokingly comment on how improper this was for a lady and what would her mother think, but that's when he caught sight of something that made what little blood he had left run cold. Never, ever, not in a million years, would Gadget ever expect to see it, but in spite of all that, the inspector looked down to see that Dr. Brenda Bradford, a person who in Gadget's mind was synonymous with the words peace, love, and purity, held in her hands, hands that were only ever known to heal and help, was, of all ungodly things, a **shotgun**.

Taking only but a mere second's glance at the deadly weapon which he knew in his core should never come close to Brenda, let alone be held in her arms, Gadget's eyes shot up to meet Brenda's which were red and puffy, indicating either crying or a lack of sleep. In a world where Brenda Bradford, of all people, could hold a shotgun, Gadget assumed it was probably both.

Inspector Gadget started first, asking the question, "Are you alright?" The answer to which he knew would be…

"…No," Brenda answered, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. She visibly shook as her hands gave way, causing her to drop the shotgun, then unexpectedly, or expectedly, we may never know, Brenda ran over to Gadget, threw her arms around him and began to sob. Weeks' worth of frustration, lack of sleep, and fear, most of all fear, poured out of her as she placed her face into Gadget's shoulder. They stood there for several minutes, Brenda's tears seeping into Gadget's clothes, as she lost herself in his embrace, her wails being muffled by the inspector's coat.

"There, there, it's alright, it's alright," Gadget cooed, holding Brenda close, patting her on her back.

"No…*sniff* *sniff*…no it's not," Brenda said, the flow of her tears beginning to stop.

"…What's wrong?" Gadget asked, hoping that Brenda had calmed down enough to answer some questions.

"I…*sniff* I think some…someone wants to kill me…I'm sorry Gadget…I've been followed, and I'm just so…so **scared**."

"Why didn't you call me?"

"I wanted to!...Oh I wanted to so much…but I was being followed and my phones were being watched and you have Penny to look after. I-I couldn't make her a target, I-I could never do that to Penny."

"What happened?" Gadget asked, his voice taking a bit of a stern tone now that she'd calmed down…for the moment at least.

Brenda let go of Gadget, and released herself from his embrace, after which she bent down and retrieved her shotgun, the sight of which still unsettled the inspector.

"We'll talk in my study," Brenda said, adopting a more sensible demeanor. She then walked off, deeper into her apartment, with Gadget following dutifully behind. They stalked the halls of Brenda's luxurious apartment, Gadget occasionally glancing at the picture's of Brenda they passed, especially those that included him as well. She smiles she held in those photographs seemed to darkly and ironically contrast against the woman he was following now.

It wasn't long until they'd made their way into a room full of books, brilliantly lit by a single top light, the room was tastefully defined by a large window that ran the entire length of a full wall. The window usually gave a brilliant view of the Metro City skyline, but currently, due to the somewhat despairing weather conditions outside, Gadget couldn't see a thing, and with Brenda claiming to being targeted for assassination, they made the inspector abnormally uneasy.

"Some time ago," Brenda began, turning to face Gadget, her voice startling the inspector who'd been transfixed by the darkness of the window, "I was contacted by an old friend of mine from college, had to have been four maybe five months ago that she called me up on the phone. She was…scared…afraid…and **hysterical**. She said that someone had been threatening her…and that they were going to kill her…unless she gave them what they wanted, but she said she could never give them what they wanted. That was the first call I received from her in years…and the last. Two weeks later her…her…her body was found dead in a dumpster, and two days before hand, I received a book. Lily, that's my friend's name, Lily, had sent it to me by mail, the same day she'd phoned me. It was written in some ancient language I'd never seen before. It took me awhile, but about two months ago I was able to translate it. It was around that time that I'd started to receive angry letters and phone calls…I thought that it was just one of my competitors getting drunk and trying to spook me, but one day I came home to find that my apartment had been wrecked like someone was looking for something, I knew it had to be the book. Luckily I had it on me at the time, but I was left a note by the burglars. It told me that I was not to contact the police or anyone in law enforcement, and that if I just gave up the book, they'd go away, but I knew I couldn't. I'd read through the book, I know what it's about. The book reveals the location of-"

_KRRSH!_

Broken glass was heard as the window had been broken by some unknown force. The event had drawn Gadget's attention away from Brenda briefly, and when his gaze shot back to her, it was a sight that made him want to scream. Brenda was now on the ground, gasping for air, blood seeping from a sizeable bullet hole in her chest, the blood seeping out from under her indicating that the hole had a twin from her back. Inspector Gadget stood speechless, not knowing what to do, his brain trying to process that which he saw before him, his insides twisting and screaming in agony. This was Dr. Brenda Bradford, the only woman he's ever, and probably ever would, love, and now she was lying on the floor in front of him, dying.

He moved forward to pick up Brenda, to see what he could do, but was derailed from this task when his own bullet met him and dug into his chest. The shot nearly knocked him off his feet, as the bullet dug into his skin, but not piercing the armor plating underneath. The second shot did knock him down however, the bullet ricocheting off his chest and hitting the room's only light.

"Go go Gadget night vision," the inspector said, instinct fueling his actions. Instantly, Gadget's eyes began to glow green, as his vision gave him a flawless, yet emerald view of the world around him. He stood up and looked out the window, to see that several rooftops away, the mysterious trigger man was leaving his rifle behind to make a break for it.

Filled with inconsolable rage, Gadget spoke the words before they even came to mind, "Go go Gadget arsenal: nine millimeter." His right hand began to shift and reconfigure to resemble that of a pistol, two slots opening on his hand, on at the base of his index finger to expel spent rounds, the other on the back of his hand to hook in an eight round clip, an eight round clip which Gadget put in solemly yet swiftly, his arms almost becoming a blur.

Inspector Gadget didn't know who this man was, nor did he care…

"Stop him John," Gadget heard Brenda say, using his real name for the first time in years.

All that he knew was that whoever this assassin was, he'd just signed his own death warrant.

He pointed his hand gun, which in this case was a literal translation, out the broken window, aiming through the darkness and pouring rain, his sights set dead on at his target. John Brown, prior to becoming Inspector Gadget, hit one of several snags that prevented him from joining the police force prior to the explosion and subsequent operation that made him the man he is today. One of the major snags was, of course the gun range. To be blunt John couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat, but as The Inspector, with superior reflexes, and a couple million dollars worth of targeting equipment at his disposal, targeting equipment which factored in such variables as distance, speed and wind, he could draw faster than Pecos Bill, shoot faster than Wild Bill, and hit more targets per shot than Annie Oakley ever could.

With this in mind, it should be of no surprise for you to know that in less that the time it took most people to blink, the Inspector fired off two shots that flew straight as arrows, through the heavy wind and pouring rain, dead on towards the backs of the assassin's knees. As amazing as it may sound, it is the honest truth, and this technique, which has been known to drop just abot every felon and criminal on the face of the earth, did not work. Instead, what happened was that Gadget saw two sparks flashed as each bullet ricocheted off the man's legs.

However, despite this, Inspector Gadget being the eternal and tenacious lawdog that he was, didn't give a second thought to jumping building to building to take this guy down. His only moment of hesitation, being to remove his left earlobe. The lobe functioned as homing beacon for the Metro Cityy Police, it was the last resort, reserved only for the most dire of situations. With Brenda on the floor in the state that she was, the situation was dire indeed.

He barely batted an eyelash as he took a running start towards the broken window and leaped out of it towards the adjacent rooftop, as much as he wanted to be at Brenda's side, he knew that she wanted him to catch this guy even more. Most anyone else attemptiong this would've wound up as street pizza, but to the inspector, whose inner workings were of the topmost state of the art technology in robotics, he not only made it rooftop he was aiming for, but if it weren't raining, he could've probably made it to the next rooftop in line as well.

As Gadget gave persuit, obviously closing the gap between he and his target with little to no problem, his target came to the last rooftop on the building block. Gadget felt confident that the chase would end soon, since unlike himself, the gunman probably couldn't leap the distance of rooftop of buildings that were separated by roads. However, Gadget's assumption was entirely wrong, for when the perp came to the building's edge, and seemingly the end of his rope, the gunman jumped the distance with ease. Gadget was unable to see how the assassin was capable of accomplishing this feat, as lightning lit up the Metro City skyline, completely blinding Gadget in his night vision mode.

Despite this unfortunate turn of events, it was apparent that no matter how hard hard the gunman ran, Gadget, with his superior speed, would eventually catch him. The problem was that Gadget didn't want to catch this guy eventually, he wanted to catch this guy **now**. He didn't have to wait long for the opportunity to do just that as Gadget saw that on the roof he'd just landed upon there were two rather large airvents. Gadget wasted no time in ripping one of these vent from it's rooftop mooring, as easily as one might pick a flower. Once in hand, it was short work to calculate the weight, distance, speed, and wind, then throw the seventy pund projectile roughly half a football field's distance for a bullseye's strike against the small of the gunman's back, the vent easily knocking the assassin to the ground.

In the twenty seconds it took for the assassin to get back on his feet, he heard a click, as the inspector's handgun cocked itself, and turned to see Gadget's face locked in a look that was the equivalent of anger on crack.

"Move, and I shoot out your teeth, one by one," Gadget said, aiming at the assassin's mouth seeing as it was the only partthat wasn't covered by the black body suit the man wore. Gadget wasn't sure if this threart would work, after seeing the bullets bounce of the man's legs, he couldn't tell if was because of the man himself or his suit. Gadget did notice that from the way the man stood, he did not want to put up a fight. Gadget removed a pair of handcuffs from the innerlining of his coat with his free hand, leaving the gun still trained on his target, that's when the assassin took a step backwards.

"I told you not to move," Gadget growled, his threat being answered in yet another backwards step, "THIS ISN'T A GAME DAMN IT! Take on more step and I'll-"

"YOU'LL WHAT!?!" the gunman shouted, "Shoot me in the face?" He made one more step backwards, the heels of his boots hanging ove the edge, above the darkness of the streets below.

Gadget's mind struggled to find an answer to the man's question, he had the inspector beat, there was no way to stop the guy from going over the edge, Gadget was fast, but he wasn't that fast. So this left Gadget to try to think, to cobble together something, anything, that would stop the gunman from doing what he was about to do. Unfortunately, Gadget was unable to think of any words that would stop or distract the guy in time, and the assassin went over the edge.

Gadget stood in shock, but only for a moment, if he was going to write an obituary, he'd need a body to write about. Gagdet rushed to the edge and looked down, to find that his perp, instead of going splat, had somehow miraculously survived the fall. The gunman now continued to make good his escape by getting into the the driver's seat of a waiting getaway car below, a black sedan whose door had barely closed before it's wheels had begun to screech against the rain slicked pavement, trying to get traction.

Gadget declared himself to be damned if he were to let this punk getaway. So without a moment's notice, nor even the slightest hesitation for his own safety, Gadget stepped over the edge with nothing but the hope that his legs wouldn't break from the impact. His only action as he fell throught the night's sky was to press down on his remaining ear lobe, the button inside of which was used to summon the Gadgetmobile to his location, sensing the possible problems that could arise from the lack of the vehicle's prescence.

Fortunately, once again, the inspector's marvelous body came through once again, the advanced bionics in his legs not giving out so much as a creak after hitting the pavement from so high up, the impact of the landing creating two small craters which began to pool rain water around his feet. Sadly, this was not enough to finish the chase, as at that moment, the assassin's car finally got the traction it needed, and took off like a jet.

"Go go Gadget grapple!" the inspector barely had time to get the words out of his mouth before the car, which claerly had some speed modifications done on it, was out of range. He pointed his left arm towards the getaway car, a small pop was heard as the gas powered mechanism fired out his hand which only remained attached to the inspector by a titanium alloy chain which lead inside Gadget's now handless sleeve. The hand was able to successfully land on the car's back bumper and easily grip down into the bumper's steel frame. Alas, Gadget's footing was not nearly as firm as he had thought, so when the inspector reached the end of his rope, or in this case chain, he was lifted up off his feet by the sudden jerk from the escaping vehicle and was then proceded to be dragged along the pavement behind it.

Even in such a dire situation, a situation which most people would refer to as life threatening, Gadget persevered in doing everything in his power to try to stop this man. This proved impossible, as in his current situation the inspector was quite helpless. He tried to use his gun to blow out the car's tires, but sadly the act of aiming becomes somewhat muddled when it's performed whilst being dragged along assphault from behind a rapidly moving vehicle. Suffice to say, Gadget's shots were wild, unfocused, and chaotic, and the few shots that did connect with the sedan's tires had no effect as the assassin had self-sealing tires, which, true to their name, resealed themselves immediately after being punctured. In the end the only thing Gadget could do was reconfigure his right hand to its original for one the ammo clip was spent, and begin to reel himself in towards the car.

The inspector was about to place his left hand on the car's back bumper, and reattach his left hand to it's wrist, when the car made a sharp and swift turn to the left that momentarily placed the car running on two wheels. Suffice to say, it was miracle that the sedan didn't flip, however that isn't to say that the vehicle was left completely unscathed by the ordeal. To the contrary, the sudden shift in momentum, combined with the already pre-exisiting strain of having to drag half a ton of cybernetic inspector, caused the sedan's back bumper to be ripped off, sending Gadget, still clutching the now useless piece of metal, careening into the base of a street light, upon impact practically ripping that from it's place as well.

After a terrible accident that would've undoubtedly killed anyone else, the inspector merely pulled himself out from under the severely bent and damaged street lamp, getting up to breifly wipe away some the mud and oil that had accrued on his shirt and coat front, which now were missing several buttons. It took him only a millisecond to realise that he was lucky that it'd been pouring rain so hard, cause if it weren't for the rain water soaking the streets not only would his shirt front, but also his the front of his pants, and basically all of the flesh on the front of his body would be ripped away to reveal the metal underneath. This good news did nothing to improve Gadget's mood, as he could do nothing but grit his teeth and stare as the getaway car's back lights seemed to shine almost mockingly as the car disapeared up the street.

However, just when all hope was lost, Gadget was enveloped by two bright lights coming from behind him. He disengaged his night vision, and turned to hear the screech of tires as Gadgetmobile came to a sudden halt, as faithful and true as ever. Gadget couldn't help but smile as he wasted no time in getting into the driver's seat. Once there, he practically put his foot through the floor, the Gadgetmobile's formidable engine working to make the machine nothing more than a blur as it took off down the road. As the Gadgetmobile did it's job to catch up with the getaway car, the inspector turned of the car's lights, he was glad to be prepossessing the knowledge that the assassin's tire's were self-sealing, since he no longer had to pursue that path. He issued the voice commands that caused the Gadgetmobile's front hood to slightly crack open, omitting two long and rather sinister looking pipes. The inspector smiled malevolently as the Gadgetmobile worked to close the gap betwixt the vehicles, now all that was left was to wait, and since under normal vision Gaget could begin to see the assassin's car come into view, he suspected the wait would not be long.

The assassin however was oblivious to all this, secure in his mind that he'd shaken the gun toting interloper and made good his escape, which only left the sedan's GPS to plot the best course to the airport. So you can imagine his surprise when in his rearview mirror, there suddenly appeared a pair of blinding bright lights. The assassin squeezed his eyes shut at the sudden brightness, taking notice of several loup pops coming from the direction of his tires. He rolled down the window and poked his head out the window, expecting to see mangled rubber and rims running on pavement, instead finding something resembling construction site caulk rapidly growing on the tires, becoming hard, attaching itself to chassis and generally gumming up the works, causing the the car to slow and eventually come to a stop.

Gadget smiled as he got out of the Gadgetmobile, the specially patented "Gadget Gum Grenades" had never failed him before, and true to form, they didn't do so now. The inspector began to reach for his handcuffs, when the top of the sedan suddenly popped off, and Gadget saw the source of the gunman's rooftop and falling success, a pair of fully functional rocket boots, which were now working to propel the assassin skyward. However, Gadget had too much at stake to let this guy get away. The inspector rushed forward, jumping onto the sedan, and from there jumping up to grab onto the assassin's pant leg. The gunman wasted no time in dispatching the inspector once and for all, usuing a cutting laser to shear away the bullet proof fabric from which Gadget clung. With nothing keeping him aloft, the inspector was sent hurtling into the ground below, the sight of the assassin flying off seeming to mock him as he fell.

**CRACK!**

Gadget's landing was far from delicate to say the least, however, the inspector remained unharmed as the impact shook several nearby windows and left a sizeable crater in the ground. The Gadget wasted no time in getting back to his feet, left to come to grips with the fact that the chase was over. He couldn't even take to the air himself since he'd gotten rid of the Gadget-copter years ago since he'd ironically deemed it as cumbersome and impractical. In the distance, he heard the blare of an ambulance siren as it sped of towards some urgent destination. Sound worked as a hotline in Gadget's memory as he rushed back to the Gadgetmobile, pocketing the fabric as he moved. He'd just been reminded that there was somewhere he needed to be.

The inspector disengaged the Gadgetmobile's autopilot and took the wheel for himself. Gadget drove like a madman, breaking speed limits, breezing through red lights, occasionally hoping the shoulder to drive on the sidewalk, all the while one thought, more a primal instinct and need than an actual cognitive thought. He needed to be there, he didn't know what he'd do when he got there, all he knew was that he needed to get there before...well he didn't want to even try to process the alternative to him not being there in time.

The Gadgetmobile pulled up in front of the Cinderella Towers apartment complex for the second time that night, this time screeching to a halt. Gadget got out of the vehicle to find that several police officers and paramedics had already reached the scene, the inspector looked into the lobby to see that the only elevator that went up to penthouse level was closing it's door, filled with paramedics and beat cops with weapons drawn, it was okay though, Gadget had no intention of using the elevator anyways.

The inspector look up at the side of the building, taking only a second or so to aim for his target properly, before using his powerful legs to leap onto a third floor balcony. From there he began to masterfully scale the building, taking the journey up two floors at a time, sometimes digging his fingers into the concrete and plaster, to pull himself up and gain extra ground in between particularly strong bursts of wind. He just kept climbing, and climbing, and climbing, and climbing until he finally reached the broken window.

Gadget looked into the darkened study and was at first confused. He stared at the spot where Brenda was when he left, but she wasn't there, his eyes followed a trail of blood on the ground to a dark corner where Brenda lay with her eyes half closed and her hands laying upon the shotgun which rested in he lap.

"...John...you...came back," Brenda said, her breathing was shallow and labored, and her skin had become pale and clamy to boot.

"Don't try to stress yourself talking," Gadget said, moving forward to kneel down next to her, "The paramedics are on their way up right now, everything's going to be alright."

"...No...it's not."

"Come on, don't think like that it's going to be fine."

"...Listen...John...on there," Brenda weakly raised her hand to point at one of the tables in the study. Gadget got up and walked over to the table, finding only a telephone book. "...Open it," Brenda's voice came weakly from behind him. Doing as he was told, Gadget opened the book to find that inside most of the pages had been cut away to make room for a second, smaller book that had been hidden inside. The second book was obviously much older than it's hiding place, it was bound in leather and iron and bore no title but instead held a small gold spiral that was engraved into the center of the cover.

Gadget returned to kneel down next to Brenda with the book in his hand. "Brenda, I don't know what to do with this."

"...Keep it...Find...Cornelious...he'll...translate...Keep...the book...safe...it's the key...to finding...at-"

"...Finding what?" Gadget waited, but Brenda didn't reply. He placed two fingers to her neck, but no pulse was found there. Inside him, Gadget was lost in a great, deep, and blackened ocean of sorrow, words could not express what he was going through at that moment. If you've ever lost someone truly important to you, then you can understand exactly what the inspector was going through and know why there are no proper words to express the emotions which are felt, and if you haven't lost someone, then you can never know.

A few minutes later, several cops broke down the door to Dr. Bradford's apartment, only to find the inspector waiting for them, carrying the doctor's body in his arms. They parted to allow the paramedics to get through with a stretcher. No one said anything as Gadget carefully placed Brenda's blood soaked body down on the stretcher, then moving on to pick up a computer modem and a strange book. The inspector was asked only one question.

"Where are you going?" asked a rookie beat cop as the inspector headed towards the waiting elevator doors.

"...To find out who did this," Gadget answered bitterly as the elevator doors closed shut.


	2. Arc 1 Part 2:After one of Those Nights

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters**

**Undisclosed location, Southern California 2:46pm**

Inspector Gadget was in the Gadgetmobile, driving down the sunlit highway. At least that's the way it would seem to most, and for those who were close enough to look into the Gadgetmobile's windows they'd say that Gadget had his eyes shut as he drove. However, in this case they'd be dead wrong. The Gadgetmobile was in autodrive, allowing the inspector to concentrate on his work.

Currently, Gadget's hands resided on either side of the computer modem that rested in his lap. Several wires and cables reached out from his coat and shirt sleeves, hooking into the various outlets found on the tower. Playing before his eyes was all the information the computer contained, of course for him to view them he needed darkness, hence the reason for his eyes being closed. This was not the first time he'd done this in the days following Brenda's murder. No matter how many times Gadget probed the entirety of the computer for information, he found nothing on that was even remotely related to the book which currently sat in the passenger seat next to him. It had apparently not occurred to the late Dr. Bradford that the book and her personal computer might fall into allied hands, for she had done a more than thorough in destroying any possibly useful information to Gadget's search. The only real reason why he was probing the computer now was because it helped him concentrate and put things together as he reviewed the events of the past few days.

It had so far been four days since the murder of Brenda Bradford. He received an email from Penny telling him that the funeral was beautiful, and that she wished he could've been there. Gadget was shocked that she'd attended it and that she'd risk an email to tell him as such when he explicitly told her to go into hiding. She did reassure him by stating that she'd been incognito, her hair being cut and dyed whilst she wore a fake beard and sunglasses, Gadget didn't even want to fathom what his beloved niece could've possibly looked like.

She ended the message by reaffirming that the funereal was wonderful, with many officers from the force showing up to pay their respects, she also restated that she wished he could've been there. That was a wish that he wholly sympathized with, but he couldn't grant it. Over the years, Gadget had come to understand how a few days, hours, heck, even minutes could make all the difference between cracking or sinking a case, evidence ages and moves, so time was far more precious than most people realize. So far most of the inspector's investigations had been over the phone and in the Gadgetmobile, with an appalling amount of times being spent on plane and car rides to the homes and workplaces of those who'd come into contact with the book in order to gather clues.

Gadget, being an old hand at hacking into the US Postal records was able to procure a list of people for whom the book could've possibly been sent. As he ran down the list of names, and he soon found himself cutting a swath through a trail of bodies So far from what he'd gathered, this book had manifested into something of a curse for whoever came into ownership of it, the owners being the bright and brilliant of the scholarly and archaeological communities, all of whom had come to their own sticky ends shortly after sending the book off to someone else. The only person that didn't fit the mold of the rest of the body pile was a Yuri Raskolov.

Yuri Raskolov, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, was the black sheep of the family on crack, to say he was the thorn in his mother's side was too light a statement, he was more like a pike. A sucker for cheap and easy money, Yuri quickly became acquainted to the world of crime. He soon found himself to be a regular patron of state penitentiaries, being locked up for just about every crime short of murder, that's not to say he wasn't suspected of it on more than one occasion, he was about as common a thug as you could find. His last trip to the big house was for beating his then girlfriend to a bloody pulp, he was sentenced to two years, but that was five years ago.

Eleven months ago, Yuri was found with a broken neck at the bottom of the stairs of his apartment building, sending the book to a Mina Raskolov that same day, his sister who was a professor of ancient languages at a local university, which marked the start of the book's bloody history among the scholarly community, which had thus far claimed fifteen lives, sixteen including Brenda. Gadget decided to pay Yuri's landlady a visit, since she and the late Mr. Raskolov were both Metro City regulars.

The meeting with Yuri's landlady, Agnes Stillman, was less than stellar. People who wore fur to animal rights conventions felt less awkward than Gadget did in the meeting he had with the widowed Mrs. Stillman. It wasn't easy, but the inspector was able to get the old bag to stop trying to grab his crotch long enough to get the information he wanted. According Mrs. Stillman, she insisted that Gadget called her Agnes, he didn't, until the day she had to get his body picked up from the bottom of the stairs by the cops, lest the tenants have something new to complain about, she hadn't seen hide nor hair of Yuri for three months.

After Yuri got out of jail, and started living in one of Agnes' "luxurious" apartments, he was just about a blight upon all others in the building. Yelling, cussing, playing music all night, making lewd propositions to female tenants, unemployed, all of this was par for the course when it came to Yuri. Agnes was about to kick him out, when one day he paid up his rent for that month, and not just that month, but the three other month's rent which he owed her at the time. After that came a steady schedule of Yuri disappearing for three months, steady checks coming in to ensure he had an apartment, then out of the blue he'd be back again for a couple of weeks, then it was back to three months of no show, and so forth. That of course all came to an abrupt end when Yuri was found dead as a doornail at the bottom of the stairs. Mrs. Stillman finished by saying that she was going to miss Yuri, well not so much the person but the two hundred and sixty a month he represented.

Having run to the end of his rope on finding the origin of the book, so far, Gadget decided it was high time to learn about the mystery gunman and get acquainted with the enigmatic Cornelius. Luckily, both targets weren't too far from one another, as each lived on private residences in the gorgeous Californian countryside.

The first target was easy enough to find, her name was a standard in just about every fashion magazine known to man ever since, well, Gadget himself was a kid. Gadget pulled of the highway and onto a back country road, his internal GPS giving the Gadgetmobile it's directions. After an hour or so of staring at grassy fields, which can be beautiful for only so long before they become boring, a simple drive over a grassy knoll bestowed Gadget with a superb view of a fantastically new age compound. However, as beautiful as the compound was, Gadget knew that this place was about as safe and artsy as a den of starved lions with a couple of rabbits thrown in the mix. Now, while the inspector did not possess x-ray vision, and never could get enough cereal box tops to get the ones advertised in the back of the comics, the enhanced cybernetics in his eyes allowed his vision to catch the subtle signs of danger even from a couple of miles off. His telescopic vision delivering such clarity that he was able to see the patches of grass that had been squared off for a trap door of some sort, he also took note of the explosive charges that lined the road that lead to the main house, on top off that his infrared vision gave him a clear view of the laser trip wires that crisscrossed the lawn, oh, and the blue glowing laser fence with the ability to atomize all matter on impact that surrounded the compound was a pretty good tip off too. A blind man could see that any fool who tried to sneak in was lining themselves up for a very flashy suicide. Gadget liked to think he wasn't a fool, at least not any more, that's why he was going to use the front door.

The Gadget pulled up to the front gate, at where a video monitor was waiting for him. The screen lit up to reveal a grainy black and white image of a man in three piece suit and sunglasses. "Name?" the nameless face on the screen asked via speaker.

"Inspector Gadget," Gadget rarely liked to use his own name to get into places, usually stating he was on orders from the Metro PD, but celebrities usually tended to meet with other celebrities much more quickly and cordially than the common place flatfoot.

True to form, once the inspector's headline worthy name was mentioned, things took a turn for the irregular. Almost soon as the "G" of his own name left the inspector's lips, the man on the screen was ushered off to the side by an unseen person, and the top of a head accompanied by a pair of bespectacled eyes became visible along the bottom of the screen. The eyes narrowed upon the inspector, and a high pitched nasally voice replaced the previous man's deep bass, "Who?...Are?...You?"

"Inspector-"

"Yes, yes, yes, I heard that, why are you here? Do you have a warrant?"

"I'm not here to search the premises ma'am, I just need to ask you a few questions."

As amazing as it sounds, the already narrowed eyes seemed to push narrowing to a brand new level, and in the silence that transpired in the next few seconds made Gadget begin to suspect that he was about to come under fire. His suspicion rose to new heights when the screen unexpectedly cut off, however when he and the Gadgetmobile weren't engulfed in flames, he merely took this as a sign that he wasn't going to be able to talk today. He was about to pull away, and add "get a warrant" to his list of things to do when the sound of whirring gears caught his attention. Gadget looked up to see the front gates peel away to allow the inspector a way in, although the reception had thus far been far from warm. Despite this, it did nothing to shake the inspector's confidence that this meeting will prove helpful, even though he didn't have the slightest idea as to how.

Moments later, the inspector parked the Gadgetmobile in front of what was undoubtedly the main house. No matter how many times Gadget looked the structure over, the only message the architecture seemed to convey from it's big and expensive looking design was that whoever lived here had way too much money. At the front door, Gadget was met by the same man from video monitor, accompanied by three other men dressed in the same manner as the first. They were actually a lot more impressive in person than they were on screen, each one built like a line backer all of the easily a head or so taller than Gadget, and from the slight bulge underneath each of their jackets, it was apparent to anyone who cared to look that these guys were packing heavy iron. Now while this all did a fine job of intimidating the riffraff who might find themselves upon this house's doorstep, it did little to cow the inspector, the Gadget almost being so bold as to say, "I'd like to see you guys try."

Nevertheless, Gadget was lead into a foyer that worked in perfect concert with the outside of the building to flawlessly portray the message of wealth befitting royalty. Gadget stretched himself out on one of the incredibly expensive looking love seats that arrayed themselves about the room that was adorned with modern art portraits Gadget had only ever seen pictures of. Gadget looked at each of the pictures, knowing that if he were to pawn off all the state of the art technology his body was comprised, it still would only come out to half of what one of these portraits would cost.

The inspector's viewing of these horrifically costly works of modern art was interrupted by a slight cough, which was so small, so light, that Gadget almost hadn't registered it, even with his overly advanced hearing. The inspector turned around to see an incredibly short woman that barely came up to his elbows. She had black hair that came down to just below her ears, cut and trimmed to perfection with an almost militaristic determination. She wore glasses with thick lenses with even thicker black and polished rims. For the moment, aside from her lingerie blouse, which was burgundy, all of her clothing was black. Dress shoes, stockings, skirt, blazer, pearl necklace and ear rings, the whole nine yards, all of it black. To be honest, to Gadget, her choice of clothing strongly reminded the inspector of a realtor or possibly a used car saleswoman. Of course he didn't voice such an opinion, in the likely event that if he did; he'd get a swift sock in the jaw and a kick out the door. And he probably would've deserved it too, because then he'd be insulting someone extremely important.

The woman standing before Gadget, as unassuming as the visage may be, was someone not to be trifled with, nor one whose time should be wasted, for her time truly was money, not just to herself but to many people. If she wanted, she could buy and sell the heads of every major clothing company ten times over and still have more than enough change to purchase several hundred yachts. The woman's name ranked up amongst several others, such as Prada, Gap, and JP Lizzy, her name being almost synonymous with the word "fashion". This was the foremost, and easily the most renowned, clothing designer in the late twentieth century, a visionary whose insight has shifted the style and form of clothing as we know it, her mind never being in the past, or the now, but the tomorrow. This was Edna Mode.

Currently however, the impact of meeting such a woman was significantly lowered, considering she wore a mask of objectivity identical to her employees who were arrayed around her, although from the perfection of it's execution it was clear that such a facial expression was something her work force had picked up from her. However, regardless of what was picked up from whom, the expression played it's part to inform Gadget that she did not desire the inspector's presence in her home, nor did she plan to even pretend as such.

"So," Gadget began wryly, grasping at straws for something to say, "How about those Yankees?"

"…Quaint," the clothing designer stated without emotion, "Your clothes look ridiculous, what blind man designed them?"

"I actually bought them off the rack."

At this, Edna's nostrils flared and her eyes widened, as if she were about to attack Gadget for saying something so sacrilegious in her high priced kingdom of style. However, she managed to keep her murderous instincts in check long enough to carry on to the situation at hand, "Why are you here?"

The inspector reached into his coat pocket and pulled out half the fabric that had been cut away from Brenda's murderer's jump suit, he was only able to cut it in half by using the ion particle laser that was located in Brenda's laboratory. He walked over and handed the piece of cloth down to the woman, who took it from his hand and stared at it intently.

"What is this, some sort of wardrobe malfunction?" Edna asked.

"It came off of an assassin's jumpsuit. The cloth was skin tight, yet it was capable of deflecting bullets."

If Edna was surprised, or shocked at any revelations the information might bring, she didn't betray it. As impartial as ever, she looked from the cloth to the inspector, questioning, "And what makes you think I would know something about this?"

"Nothing, at least nothing official, which I'm certain is the way you and your rumored clientele would want it."

"Clientele?"

"Ah, ah, ah, I'm sure you don't want us touching any subjects that would be…embarrassing to file in an official report now, would we?"

"…I understand…So why would you bring the fabric to me? I am just a mere fashion designer."

"That live in a state of the art fortress."

"You can never be too careful these days. So why would you come to me? For the sake of your report."

"Well considering that if there was a lineup of the world's smartest people, you'd be among the first twenty without a doubt, and the fact that before your career in fashion design, you designed some of the most advanced military hardware used to this day, I suppose you just might have a theory or two."

"So, you want me to find out how this cloth is made?"

"I'm not so much concerned on the "how" of this cloth, but more the "who". I need you to look into who would have the means to create such a fabric and employ it to killers."

"Serial?"

"More of the hired help kind."

"And how do you propose I do that? That is to say if I were interested in the least, which I'm not. I'm a very busy woman you know. And it's not like I would know anyone in that sort of business, so who do you suppose I should ask?"

"Once again, that touches in the market of that "nothing official" business we were discussing earlier. However, I'm sure there just might be one or two friends you have in the fashion industry who might have an idea. And that's not to say there might be that enigmatic friend of a friend, you know, a line of information that's solid, yet untraceable. Besides, you're just a concerned citizen, I'm sure that something like this is bound to come up in conversation."

"Hmm…I suppose it might."

"So are we on the same page?"

"…I see…I think I'll ask-"

"Ah, ah, ah, remember, names have to be entered in the official report."

"I'll ask…around."

"Fantastic," Gadget said with a smile, heading for the door, "Thank you kindly ma'am."

"And inspector," Edna called over her shoulder.

"Yes ma'am?" Gadget said, stopping to turn around.

Edna looked the inspector up and down, registering mental length increments, "Why don't you come back on of these days? I'll make you a suit…on the house."

"I don't know ma'am," Gadget said with a smile, "I've grown awfully fond of buying off the rack."

With Mode's assistance in the investigation assured, Gadget entered the Gadgetmobile with a renewed vigor. However, despite the illusion his cordiality with Mode and the wry jokes with the woman may imply, all the inspector's actions were without joy, without love, guided more so with more so by loss than anything else, although he wouldn't admit, probably not even to himself. His actions were fueled by not mere desire, or anger, or even the overwhelming loss he felt himself falling into when not distracted by intense focus on the case, no, all his actions were fueled by need. A deeply ingrained need that transcended need of food or warmth, although in his present condition he was no longer aware of such ailments anymore, no his need was of the most urgent and far more important than those petty things, his was the need for vengeance. And when one walks the hard, cold, and more often than not unforgiving and bloody road which vengeance has forged through blood oaths and tribal vendettas, it pays to be notoriously in efficient in every word and deed.

The inspector's next target was, as incredulous as it sounds, was Edna Mode's neighbor, although the term "neighbor" in such an isolated and desolate place as the hilly back country was more of a cruel joke than an actual concept. Especially when one considers the drive from Mode's compound to the building which was Gadget's next target took up the majority of an hour.

Gadget had no idea what to expect upon his arrival at his next destination, in fact he was more than expecting a satellite relay center since when he looked up information on the property he was bound for,

Gadget had no idea what to expect upon his arrival at his next destination, in fact he was more than expecting a satellite relay center since when he looked up information on the property he was bound for, he was informed that the property had previously been an observatory, until it was abandoned and purchased by a Dr. Lucille Krunklehorn Robinson, to what use she put it to is unknown, and as such there was no register of a Cornelius Robinson living on the was nothing short of a miracle that Gadget found this location at all, for Brenda was quite thorough in leaving no trace of her communications with others concerning the book. If it hadn't been for the fact that a Cornelius had emailed Brenda inquiring if she'd translated the book or not, Gadget would have no idea where to go. The only reason this sole email had survived destruction was that it had been sent three minutes after Brenda had been shot, and despite the grim timing, Gadget was able to push past his feelings about it, hack the email systems and find out the location of the sender, his name; C. to find a rather dark and gloomy locale, Gadget was surprised to find that, as he went over a hill, the large observatory out post had been converted into a rather charming, albeit massive home. The building lay in stark contrast to Mode's compound. It just wasn't the fact that this place was all one central building instead of several small and spread out facilities, or even the visible lack of lethal weapons, although those were certainly contributing factors. No it was the building's aesthetic, the 1950's architecture of the observatory, with all it's curves, stood above the sharp lines of the Mode compound, the architecture of the sock hop era portraying a sense of forward motion into the future far better than Mode's flashy and expensive "new age" look, this building was definitely something one didn't see every much as the inspector would've liked to simply sit and stare at the building, captivated by it's clean cut yet rustic charm, he was here with a job to do, the image of Brenda bleeding upon the floor crept up sickeningly in his mind. He exited the Gadgetmobile, weighing the pros and cons of simply bursting into the building and waving a gun around until he got the information he wanted, specifically the whereabouts of this Cornelius if it turned out he wasn't there. Unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever side of the fence you sit, the cons of such a recourse outweighed the pros, so Gadget settled with ringing one of the doorbells, the reason for there being two was lost on the bells made a light clinking sound, like shattered crystal, and the inspector was taken aback by this unique choice in guest alert, he was tempted to try the other bell to see if it sounded differently, when the door opened suddenly opened and Gadget was met by a short man with black hair, a friendly face, and for some reason he wore his clothes backwards."Can I help you?" The man said with a smile, having to take a few steps back so as to get the much taller inspector's eyes into view."…Cornelius Robinson?""Yes?""I believe you've had contact with a Doctor Brenda Bradford in regards to-""Oh, you want to meet Cornelius!"Gadget was taken aback by this sudden outburst, but was quickly able to compose himself once more, "…Well yes, but…you're…not Cornelius are you?""Oh, shucks no!" the shorter man replied, his voice sounding as if it waltzed the line between interpretable speech and laughter. "You want, my son. So, has he been nominated for another Nobel Prize, or has he finally received that doctorate in Astrophysical and Pandimensional Theory? He's had his eyes on that one for a while you know."The inspector was temporarily at a loss for words, he was able to follow everything up until "doctorate". After that he was at a blank, trying to process what exactly they were talking about, failing miserably, and finally deciding to focus on the fact that this was not Cornelius. "Um…Is Cornelius here?""Why of course he is! Say, you wouldn't happen to be from NASA to give him his funding for that space project he's been wanting to develop?" The short man with backwards clothing said, walking across the lawn, beckoning the inspector to follow. "To be honest I didn't think you guys would pony up the money, but I'm glad you all finally came round, I mean it is space exploration on a galactic scale we're talking about here.""Um, perhaps it's best that I just speak to Cornelius," Gadget said, not wanting to seem stupid, well, at least stupid in comparison."Say no more, you don't want to let anything slip until the press conference, you probably want me to deny you even being here, I understand. By the way, the name's Bud, Bud Robinson.""And Cornelius is your…""Son, that's right.""He must be a very smart man to get so many doctorates and awards.""Cornelius? Well he is a bit of a smart cookie I suppose, but as for the man part, I'm not too sure.""Excuse me?" Gadget asked, Bud's last statement catching the inspector a bit off guard."Well he's not even legally allowed to drive yet.""Cornelius?"At the inspector's question, Bud stopped dead in his tracks, and swiveled around on the spot, staring Gadget hard in the eye, "…Do you know who exactly I'm taking you to see?"Gadget wasn't sure, at first he'd expected to find a linguist, then a physicist, then a aerospace space engineer, and now, well, he didn't know which story to go with, so after a few seconds, the inspector finally answered, "Cornelius Robinson?"At Gadget's response, Bud gave the law man a wry smile, "Yes, that's right."From then on, the rest of journey across the expansive lawn was taken in silence, although admittedly the walk wasn't all that long. They eventually came to what Gadget thought might've been a large green house, but with the windows heavily tinted black, it was impossible for even the inspector to see what sort of plants might be in there, if there were any at all. Once they got within a few feet of the building, the inspector's vision became weird and distorted, bending everything he saw out of shape, the same thing happened once when he stood too close to an MRI machine, and again when he accidentally fell in a crate of fridge magnets. It took a while for the internal imaging and magnetic resonance field with in his body to kick in and sort this out, but it was still disconcerting. It would take magnetic distortion of an incredible force to do that to his eyes, and from so far off no less, it was impressive and unnerving all at once. Gadget, couldn't help but ask himself just what the hell Cornelius was doing in there, assuming of course Cornelius was even in the building, and for what they neared the door, Gadget saw that hanging along the wall were two of the foam rubber body suits that the police used when training attack dogs, as well as two extra hardhats and safety goggles. Bud wasted no time in getting into one of these getups, goggles and all. It wasn't until the man pulled his hard hat down on his head that he noticed that the inspector had yet to follow suit. "You're going to want to be in one of these," Bud informed him, "Trust me.""No, I'll be fine," the inspector politely declined."No, you won't," Bud insisted, handing the inspector a pair of safety goggles."Trust me, I'm tougher than I look," Gadget said, consenting enough to at least put on the goggles."Not tough enough.""Sir, it is very important that I see Cornelius as soon as possible.""*sigh* Okay, it's your hospital bill."

Bud went over to the door and pulled it open. Almost immediately as this happened, a small, hard plastic orb, that'd probably fit easily into one's hand, jetted out of the darkness from within the greenhouse, flying straight as an arrow and knocking the inspector's head back. Gadget could see why Bud was so insistent on safety, had it been anyone else, they would've been knocked off their feet, on their back, unconscious, with a concussion and possibly, probably, a fractured , apparently well aware of the consequences of neglecting the safety standards set in place, looked the inspector up and down, and was quite satisfied to see no blood, impressed that the inspector was still standing. "Hmm, I guess you are tougher than you look."The two entered the gloomy greenhouse, the inspector a bit more humbly and cautiously than his heavily padded guide. Gadget was amazed by what he found inside, the greenhouse was dimly lit, the light that filtered in through the heavily tinted windows set a deep Prussian blue tone for the room, which was about the only calm thing about the dark building. The despite the dim illumination, the main attraction and theme of this room was light and motion. And oh, there were lights, everywhere, orbs of beautiful light zooming this way and that, occasionally pelting the two entering, but not to the extent that they caused damage. The orbs came in all sorts of sizes, ranging from orbs the size of softballs to pinky toes, all of them moving at such dizzying speeds that not even the inspector's advanced targeting systems could keep track of one for too long. And the only thing that rivaled in variation to the orbs size range was the bouquet of colors in which they ranged from. The dark reds, the bright yellows, the brilliant aquas, the vibrant violets, the dazzling greens, some of the orbs, as incredulous as it sounds, trailed tails of silver dust as they zoomed through the air. It was like watching a never ending fireworks display in action.

The awe inspired Gadget came to his senses however when he heard a voice call out to him and bud, "Was anyone hurt?"

The inspector looked to the source of the voice to find someone at the center of the expansive greenhouse. The mystery person was dressed much in the same manner as Bud, and at first Gadget didn't see him, it wasn't like he was hiding or anything, but it wasn't easy to make heads or tails of anything too far off in the gloom of the green house. And even when the inspector concentrated, it took him a few seconds to make out the image of the speaker, not because of the green house's darkness, but because he was placed near a slightly more eye cathcing object, a word that here takes place of "a large device that was roughly the size of three full size vans. The object in question was, as mentioned before, quite larger than the person working on it, and, for all intents and purposes, it resembled a giant metal pawn chess piece.

"Nope," Bud said to answer the person's question, "no blood or broken bones…so far."

"Which one was it?"

"X five-six-three."

"Of course it was X five-six-three, it's always X five-six-three. There's just something about it and that door…*sigh*, might as well turn it loose."

Gadget turned to see Bud reach into his padded suit and remove the small plastic orb that had struck the inspector before, Bud must've snatched it up whilst the Gadget's view was turned upwards the inspector theorized. The ball in Bud's hand lit up, gaining a bright and friendly orange glow before zooming off through the air, joining it's brothers and sisters on it's own erratic and unpredictable flight path.

"Aw geez," the person said, stepping back from the machine, "What day is it?"

"Thursday," Bud answered matter-of-factly.

"That makes it…"

"Four days you've been in here."

"FOUR DAYS!?! THAT'S…no wait that sounds about right. Any new developments?"

"Dr. Paulsen wants you to look over his neurosurgery hypothesis before he begins to experiment."

"I'll look it over on the toilet."

"The Green Society wants to congratulate you on your recycling machines so-"

"Just tell them to use the machines, that'll be thanks enough."

"Toyota wants to-"

"Next month. Next month. I told them that I'd meet with them next month."

"Oh, Franny called, she wanted to know if you, her, Goob and Gaston were still on for the movies tonight."

"Of course."

"*cough*," it was at this point Gadget felt it important to remind Bud he was still there.

"Oh!" Bud exclaimed, slightly embarrassed for forgetting the inspector, "this man came here to meet you."

"About what?" the person said, now verified as Cornelius.

"About, uh…hmm…you know, I'm not really sure."

"Might I ask a question?" the inspector interjected, "Just, what exactly is all this."

"It's a model galaxy!" Bud answered with a grin.

"But it's broken," Cornelius lamented sourly.

"I think it looks great," Gadget admitted, quite impressed with how it all looked.

"Oh yeah, it looks wonderful, aside from the fact that it doesn't conform to look like our galaxy, and it only looks pretty until someone's head is cracked wide open by one of the balls."

"Oh, I see, yeah that could be a bit of a setback…So, how much are you going to charge people to see it?" The inspector's question quickly garnered a great deal of derisive laughter from both Bud and Cornelius.

"Ha ha, that's a good one," Bud said, wiping a hysterical tear from his eye, "He's not building it for people to pay him for it silly."

"I'm working pro bono on this," Cornelius admitted.

"The orphanage he used to be in is having some renovations done and being enlarged, he's developing this to go on the new roof."

"It was originally going to be all holograms, but I thought, 'hey, how cool would it be if a kid could reach up, pluck out a star or cluster of planets, bring it to a scanner that'd tell him all about that section of space, let the orb go, and it'd fly right back to it's exact place in the simulated cosmos,' y'know?"

"See?" Bud said, giving the inspector a good natured nudge, "I told you he was a smart one."

"The problem is that for some reason they won't align the way they're supposed to," Cornelius continued with a frustrated growl.

"How does it all stay afloat?" The inspector asked, his interest unhindered as he briefly plucked a caribbean blue orb from the air and let it go to fly off once more.

"Aloft," Cornelius corrected, "and it's all due to this super magnet I'm working on right now. It has several different magnets inside of it, all working at different power levels, the positive magnets need to be powerful enough to suspend the orbs in the air, and the negative magnets need to be strong enough to keep all the orbs from clinging to the super magnet's exterior, and each orb has it's own internal magnets and computer to keep it in it's proper place as the "galaxy" slowly rotates. It should be in proper balance, but something keeps throwing it all off."

"Hmm…" Bud mused, rubbing his chin, "Did you take into account the rooms own air currents?"

"They wouldn't have had this much of an effect on them, not to mention I switched it all on in a vacuum environment, no change."

"Did you take into account the earth's own magnetic fields?"

"ARRGH! Of course, no wonder this thing doesn't work! You're a genius dad!"

"Ah, no! I would've never have gotten this far."

"But you would've remember the magnetic fields of the planet you were standing on to begin with," Cornelius said, bitterly criticizing himself, "It's going to take me weeks to figure out a way around that, ah well…After four days, I guess I could do with a break. It appears that I'll have time to talk with you after all Mr…whatever your name is." A crank of a wrench was heard, swiftly followed by the typing of keys on a keyboard, and the bouquet of swirling colors and lights slowly lowered to the ground, the orbs light diming with the descent, it made Gadget sad for some reason, though he couldn't tell why, he knew Brenda would've loved to see something like this.

The orbs finally went out, casting the room into a deep and almost impenetrable blue darkness. This was quickly lifted however by two resounding claps from Cornelius, their sound affecting lights along the ceiling that Gadget hadn't seen due to the gloom that pervaded through all corners before. The lights quickly bathed the room in a dazzling fluorescent light, allowing the inspector to get a much clearer view of not just his surroundings but of Cornelius as well.

In proper lighting, Gadget was able to make several revelations that left him rather surprised, Cornelius was quite shorter than first perceived in the darkness the room held before. The inventor approached his father and the inspector, removing his head gear as he walked, thus causing Gadget to come to grips with an even more startling and unsuspected revelation, forget old enough to drive, Cornelius Robinson wasn't even old enough to shave. With the removal of his safety goggles and hardhat, Gadget was able to get a clear view of the blond hair that bolted straight up and the circular, double thick glasses that rested on a face that couldn't have been older than fourteen, fifteen tops.

The inspector was taken quite aback, at first unable to take the boy's outstretched hand, unable to keep himself from blurting out what he thought, which wasn't very good at all, "What are you, like, ten?"

At this rather rude question, Cornelius retracted his hand. "I'm thirteen," the young genius replied sourly, the word "dick" not being said at the end of the sentence, but more implied, "and before you begin to embrace the entire boat load of misconcepitons you'd make based on my age alone, know this; I'm smarter than you, richer than you, and I'm one of the higher ups at a-" Cornelius stopped establishing his dominance in the situation as the inspector's face became somewhat familiar to him. "What did you say your name was again?"

"I am Inspector Gadget of the Metro City Police Department," Gadget answered, taking out his badge and showing it to the young inventor.

Cornelius looked the badge up and down, his face filled with amazement and awe as traced the outline of the inspector's badge, which did not have the points of a star, but instead held the squared off teeth of a cog. There was absolutely no mistaking it now. "OH MY GOD!" Cornelius shouted positively thrilled, his excitement rivaling that of a kid on Christmas morning. "Wait right here! I'm going to be right back!" Cornelius instructed the inspector.

The inspector sighed and began to unbutton his shirt. It hadn't been the first time things had happened like this, he went through it a lot when he was dating Brenda. She'd take him to parties, dress him up in monkey suits he didn't really feel comfortable in, introduce him to her scientist friends, and once they found out who he really was; they did exactly what Cornelius was doing right now.

Cornelius returned with screwdriver in hand, relieved that he wouldn't have to go through the slight awkwardness of asking the inspector to unbutton his shirt. To be honest when Gadget's chest is left out and put on display, there isn't very much for one to look at, the synthetic skin making it look just like any other, including even a few curls of hair. Really nothing too out of the ordinary, other than the zipper that's been sewn into the skin, but other than that, nothing really interesting. The zipper in question, which looked extremely macabre and unsettling to most, ran it's course as an inverted "U", going up from one side of his lower abs, arcing across his Pecs, running down and ending at the other side of his lower abs.

As squeamish as the thought may make some people, Cornelius held no fear in unzipping the inspector's chest, as odd as the statement may sound. Cornelius swiftly grabbed the slider and ran it through it's course, pulling away at the flesh which pulled away with a sickening ripping sound, like the removal of a band-aid, the dual colored skin of pale tan and wet red giving way to the shiny grey that was the metal plating underneath. The young genius wasted no time in undoing the screws which held the central plate, which held the scratches of many failed stabbing and gunshots, in place. The inspector held the central plate since it weighed in at nearly ninety pounds.

"I'll go get us something to eat," Bud said queasily heading for the door, his stomach unsettled at the sight of the inspector's flesh simply hanging off of him, pulling out and downwards like the tongue of a shoe.

"Now this," Cornelius said, completely awe inspired, "is simply amazing." Laid out before him was and orchestra of the finest and most sophisticated robotics, circuitry, and life support systems on the face of the earth. Cornelius had dreamed of this moment since he'd first read about Gadget in a Popular Science magazine back when he was eight, the entire issue was dedicated to the inspector, his inner workings, how he interfaced with other technology, how the Gadget Mobile was operated, his favorite foods, everything. It'd always been a dream of Cornelius' to see the inspector's inner workings, everything from how food was broken down into nutrients to feed his heart, liver, spleen, and one remaining lung, to how the internal actuators functioned in order to propel the over one thousand pound investigator so swiftly without collapsing in on itself. I t was simply-

"Are we done here?" the inspector asked, uncomfortable with his insides hanging out in the open.

"Hmm?...Oh yes, I'm sorry!" Cornelius said, blushing after realizing that he'd been unintentionally prodding the inspector's exposed lung, fascinated by the organ as it inflated and deflated, getting oxygen to the other organs. "So what brings you here to see me?"

"This," Gadget said, reaching into his coat, removing the strange book he'd received from Brenda, he'd taken a habit to making sure that he had it on his person at all times when leaving the Gadgetmobile, not that losing posed much of a threat, he'd already mentally copied down the entire book, page by page, if worst came to worst, he could just print out the entire book if necessary.

The two did a trade off, the book to Cornelius, the screws to the inspector, this allowed the young genius to quickly flip through the volume's text, while Gadget was left to close himself up, not needing Cornelius' screwdriver to reattach the plate, as his own was located in his left ring finger.

"I've seen this language before…" Cornelius mused, his face glued to the antiqued paper as the inspector zipped up his skin.

"Any idea what it says?" Gadget asked, beginning to re-button his shirt.

"Not a clue," Cornelius said looking up to face Gadget, closing the book with a snap.

"But Brenda said that you'd be able to translate it."

"Whoa, whoa, wait, Brenda as in THE Brenda Bradford? Is that who I've been working for this whole time?!?" Cornelius asked, astounded at such an amazing prospect.

"Yes, I thought you'd know."

"No! I didn't know anything about who I was working for, I never saw picture or anything, I just thought that Bradford was a screen name. Wait, is she here!?! Oh, man, I can't believe it! Brenda Bradford coming in person to see-"

"She's dead," Gadget stated solemnly, the statement swiftly quieting the young inventor.

At first, Cornelius was at a complete loss of words, he felt like he'd just been hit by a mack truck, he didn't know what to say. Brenda Bradford had been his hero ever since he still had his baby teeth, he named his first welding torch after her for crying out loud, and now, well, he just didn't know how to process that information. "…Uh, how did it happen?"

"She was murdered," Gadget answered without emotion, objectivity being the key to all indirect interrogations, so far the boy had proven to be innocent, for now. The inspector continued to feed the boy information, carefully reading his reactions, "I believe her assailant's motives are tied to this book, so it is very important that you tell me everything you know about this book."

Cornelius took a moment to process all this, briefly removing his glasses to rub his eyes in order to jog his memory, "I still can't believe she's gone, but…a few months ago, I'd been contracted anonymously to make a program that'd translate the symbols into modern text."

"And you didn't read any of it?" the inspector asked skeptically.

"I'd been instructed not to, only a few bits here and there to see if it was working and that was it. After it was done, I'd sent it off and had been instructed to destroy the program and everything tied to the book."

"And you didn't think any of this was odd?"

"Not at all, it hadn't been the first time I've been contracted to translate a dead language, and a lot of professors, afraid of others publishing their findings, ask me to destroy all my work, my guarantee of silence being a big part of why my price is so high."

"Is there anything you remember from you work?"

"Well…god, it was a while ago…I do remember some things…I remember that when I'd received a picture of the book, I looked it up and it matched the description of something called the Sheppard's Journal."

"The Sheppard's Journal?" the inspector echoed, raising an eyebrow as his internal modem did an automated internet search for all sources on the book.

"Yeah, it was supposedly the key to finding the lost continent of Atlantis," Cornelius said, looking down and thumbing through the pages once more, "But this isn't the actual Sheppard's Journal."

"Excuse me?" Gadget said, his ire being raised at such a prospect.

"There's no way this is the original journal, you can tell by the iron bindings, this is clearly early middle ages metal work here, with hardwood and leather binding, the original journal would've probably been a collection of scrolls that would've dissolved into dust by now. But don't worry, supposedly the other Sheppard's Journal wasn't the original either."

"Other?"

"Yes, you see, way back when, Christian monks found the scrolls which made up the original and took them to be copied at one of their monasteries in the north, there were several copies that were going to be sent and translated at Constantinople, but before that could happen, the monastery had suffered from a Viking raid. The Vikings had burnt and destroyed many of the books, including the journal copies. Although, obviously, some had to survive. One such copy landed in the possession of an unnamed Viking prince, the prince believing it to lead to some great treasure. The expedition was a failure and the book along with his shield and several other personal possessions were sent home to his family rather than being burnt along with his body on a pyre. It had been believed for years that his home was in Ireland, but a privately funded expedition in 1906, lead by famous adventurer Thaddeus Thatch, found the book in Iceland. That copy of the Sheppard's Journal was lost in a subsequent expedition, supposedly also to Atlantis itself, that expedition was met with failure as well."

Gadget wasn't sure if he bought into all of this. Atlantis? He'd sooner buy into things such as Area 51 and the man on the grassy knoll than something as farfetched as an entire continent sinking into an ocean in a single day and night. However, Brenda had died for whatever was in that book, so whatever story the book had to tell was important to the catching her killer, that much was certain. "Listen Cornelius," The inspector started, his mind beginning to formulate a plan of action.

"Mmm hmm?" Cornelius hummed in confirmation, his eyes still fixated upon the ancient pages.

"Is it possible that you could recreate the writing program you'd made for Brenda?"

"Recreate it? I can easily recreate it, and even paint it gold and slap a big red bow on it if I wanted."

"As for payment…" the inspector began, not entirely sure how to approach the delicate subject of cash, "I don't have the money to pay you right now, but-"

"If the program helps you catch whoever got Bradford, not only will I call it even, but I'll do it smiling if you like."

"Then there's just one more thing."

"And that is?"

"Although I've worked hard to destroy all possible connections linking you and Bradford, it's possible that the killer may have gotten information leading to you just the same, and I'm not discounting the possibility that I'm being followed, in fact I can almost guarantee that I once I hit the highway, my whereabouts will be quite known to the killer. For your safety, I suggest that you lay low, and possibly hire a bodyguard."

"Come on, isn't that a little extreme? I mean they wouldn't go so far as to kill a kid with glasses would th-" Cornelius stopped in his sentence because by the time he'd looked up from the book, Inspector Gadget was already gone. "Hmph, who does he think he is, Batman?"

**Days later, St. Eisner's Asylum for The Mentally Insane, Iowa 12:00am (Witching Hour).**

She worked quickly, it had been the first time she'd tried to escape in three months, they wouldn't expect her to try such a thing tonight. She looked outside the window for the door to her padded cell. Pressing her face to the glass, she heard the slosh of the janitor and his mop as they made their way along the floor in the hall, even though she couldn't see him from the limited view offered to her by the window. She was glad he was there, she wouldn't be able to escape without him, at least escape without revealing her secret, and her secret was one thing she was determined to keep hidden from the director.

She crouched down to the door, making sure that her back was to the camera in the high corner of the cell, the director would come up with a million possible theories as to how she pulled this next trick off, every one of them would be wrong.

She placed her hand upon the door. It was a strange feeling, this power of hers, how it worked was not even something she could accurately explain. Truth be told, she didn't even know the extent of it, if she wasn't so shy about showing it off, there was a good chance that it'd be powerful enough to simply blast her way out of the oubliette in which she'd been held captive in these past few years. But, not being too familiar with it's capabilities, there also stood the good chance that her power would fail at some point during such a grandstanding and violent escape attempt. The risk was far too great if she failed after using such a means. If there was anything that this world had taught her was that originality and being special was a curse. The more important you were and the harder you tried, the better they got at locking you away. If her power were to fail her during such recourse, they'd lock her away so deep that it'd be impossible for her to ever escape. She'd already wasted too much time and waited too long for her return, forever never knowing was an idea far too unbearable. She needed to escape and find out, escape and find out, it had used to be escape and revenge, and before that escape and rescue, time had become a poison of uncertainty. That was why she just didn't want to, but needed to escape and find out. And she intended to do as such tonight.

She wasn't sure how it happened exactly, or why, all she knew was how it started. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Upon what she exactly she was concentrating, not even she was wise enough to say, all that she knew was that once she did concentrate it soon came. She felt it begin to come upon her even now as she kneeled upon the floor, a great power, a power which spoke in the voices of the kings of her past, a power whose name has been lost to the seas and the rocks can no longer recollect. It was vast, and strong, as well as swift and cunning to boot. She'd once almost been one with this power many years ago, but no longer. And despite her rejection, this power, this force, looked down upon her and loved her, and gave her sight beyond what is to be seen.

She felt it grow, her awareness. She became omnipresent of all that was in the asylum. She saw everyone and everything, no detail escaping her closed eyes. She not only saw all things in the gated world of the asylum, she was one with them. She looked upon the grass outside and instantly felt the water within every blade and root flow, coursing as if through her own veins. She looked upon the lights and felt the wiring that was full of so much life, shining white hot as their power course through the small coils. She looked upon the two security guards in the monitor room a few floors down, the synapses in one's brain firing as he lied to his friend about how he met this one unbelievable beauty last night, one who had flowing brown hair with matching eyes that were only for him. She briefly flitted over her own cell, her attention catching upon the tight fibered network which made up her gray, baggy fitting chino cloth t-shirt and matching sweatpants. She saw everything, even as she had her eyes closed and saw nothing.

She bit her tongue, using the slight pain as a reminder as to why she invoked such power. It was easy to become overwhelmed with such awareness, but now was not the time to overindulge in viewing the goings on in the asylum, if everything went right, she'd never have to see the asylum in any form ever again. She concentrated her awareness to her current obstacle, her cell door. As she focused her sights on the lock, her vision of the asylum had begun to blur, only allowing her to make out vague shapes and no colors. As for the lock however, she instantly saw in every detail, it was new, out of the box just to detain her. She saw the wires in side and knew the color of everyone of them, she saw the number pads, she even saw the black ink on it's underside that was meant to inform all that it had been made in Taiwan. But what caught her attention the most were the bolts and tumblers which held the door firmly in place, they were her target. She concentrated all her awareness upon the lock, the world beyond the lock becoming nonexistent. She didn't need to concentrate this much, she was sure of that, but one never could be too careful, and not to mention that everything needed to be perfect, especially tonight. She focused solely upon the lock, extending her power from mere sight into action. All she needed...was the slightest…little…push.

She opened her eyes at the sound of a click, she pushed the door open and she was free.

A few minutes later two orderlies rushed to the scene, the sound of their footfalls keeping in step to blare of the alarm that had been triggered. Their names were Walt and Roy, and they did not have high hopes for this situation. A maximum security patient was loose, and the orderlies guts twisted with dread at their suspicions of which one it may be. They rounded the corner to get confirmation of their fears, there was a janitor on the ground and the door to room 423 was wide open. A pitiful moan from the janitor confirmed that he wasn't dead, and from a quick intake of him as they ran by informed them that the patient was armed with a mop, bucket, and the janitor's keys.

It'd take five minutes for the actual security guards to get organized well enough to bring the patient in, they first needed to secure all areas before dealing with the patient directly, this has been protocol ever since one of the patient's escape attempts involved a rather violent riot. So until the people with actual weapons arrived, Roy and Walt were to act as duct tape on the Titanic. True, in such situations they were given ridiculous amounts in hazard pay, as well as paid time off, but it's often hard to enjoy such perks when one's jaw is wired shut and all their time off is spent on the couch learning to live with metal kneecaps.

The two ran on unhindered, the path from that point being linear only as the janitor's keys would not permit access to any cells, the entire floor having been recently switched over to number pad locks for the cells. They rushed down the path laid before them, skidding to a halt as they rounded a corner to find their target, the escaped patient, public enemy number one, the curse that'd been cast upon the asylum, the two rounded the corner to find the princess.

Currently, she had her back to the two, her mop and bucket leaning against the wall next to her which wasn't to say that she wasn't aware of their presence, Walt and Roy were well aware of the princess' capabilities. The orderlies, despite being built like linebackers, knew full well that it was they who were actually in trouble should the situation turn violent. The reason why the princess paid them no mind was because the path had been fenced off, and iron bar gate had been automatically slid and locked into place, as per protocol in the event of an attempted escape by any prisoner. Due to some of such gates occasionally malfunctioning, janitors were given keys to unlock them, however in light of the princess' reoccurring escape attempts, the janitorial staff were forced to give up their keys to prevent her from getting past such defenses. Upon discovering that the janitor's keys were useless to her, the princess checked for cameras and was about to unlock the fence as well using her power, unfortunately that's when the two orderlies had shown up.

The princess turned around to face the two, Walt and Roy eying her cautiously, making sure not to make any sudden movements. "…Key," she uttered softly, thinking aloud.

Instantly Walt looked to his hip, relieved that he had the foresight to unclip it and leave it in the break room when the siren had sounded. After briefly checking himself Walt looked to Roy and became alarmed to see that Roy still had his keys. "GET OUT OF HERE ROY!" Walt urged his friend, upon realizing too late the disaster about to take place.

Roy turned around and began to run back towards the corner, but sadly he didn't get far. In a swift, almost blur like motion, the princess removed the mop from the bucket, then giving the bucket itself a powerful kick, her slippers working to protect her from stubbing her toe on the hard plastic. It's wheels on the bottom greatly aided the bucket in rocketing across the floor, and perfectly, almost as if it was the princess' idea that Roy should run, while his left leg was firmly on the ground, his right was coming down just as the bucket got in his foot's path. This surprising turnabout caused Roy to misstep and panic as his foot hit the water, the wheels only aiding in exacerbating the situation. So much so to the extent that while his left foot remained where it was, his right continued to move forward so quickly that the man did an involuntary, and very painful, perfect leg split.

"ARWK!" Roy's out cry of pain at this was similar to the sound of a parrot being strangled. All he could do at this point was pull his foot from the bucket, assume the fetal position, grab his crotch, hop he still possessed the ability to have kids, there'd be no more running for this man tonight.

Walt gritted his teeth at seeing his partner taken out of the game so swiftly, leaving him as the mercy of the princess. He faced the lithe and dangerous woman, putting his dukes up and striking a defensive position, for whatever little good it would do him. The princess however, had no intention of drawing this out, using the keys she still held within her right hand, she threw them at the orderly's eyes. Walt, out of surprise and instinct, closed his eyes as the pieces of metal painfully, yet ultimately harmlessly, hit the bridge of his nose and hit the ground. Those few seconds in which Walt failed to keep his eyes on his highly dangerous opponent was all the time the princess needed to rush forward and sweep the orderly's legs out from under him. Hitting the ground hard, Walt had no real time to adapt to the fast paced situation. The princess capitalized on this by placing her foot firmly on the side of Walt's ribcage, grabbing a hold of his left arm. After that, she quickly proceeded in twisting and pulling and pulling the limb, until…

POP!

Sound of a crunching pop signaled that she'd just dislocated his arm.

"GYYAAAH!!!" Walt screamed, as white hot, blinding, electric pain coursed through his body, any movements causing a higher abundance of, if not more potent, fireworks of pain to shoot through his body.

With both orderlies incapacitated and in need of medical assistance, it was no great feat for the princess to make use of Roy's keys and unlock the gate which blocked her path, taking the mop and keys with her.

She rushed onward, her path mirroring those of several other escape attempts she'd tried before. She eventually came to the end of the hall and was met by two doors, one being the elevator doors, the other being the door to the stairwell. The stairs were absolutely out of the question, since she could already hear the combined footsteps of orderlies and security guards alike, their feet clomping up and down the steps as it was, not to mention the stairway was completely monitored. If the princess were to go through that route, it would only be a matter of time before she would be overwhelmed. That left the elevator, or to be more accurate, the elevator shaft. The shaft, although the more perilous of the two, offered not just on escape route, but two, as opposed to the alternative which offered none. The two routes of escape were at the two places the elevator dropped off at lowest; the first floor, where it'd be a straight shot through the door, or the basement where she could get outside the building via the kitchen loading area or the staff car parking lot. In either case, the shaft was unmonitored by cameras, so in order to keep their bases covered, the guards and orderlies would need to mobilize and divide by two to block each elevator door properly, and even then, there was a decent forty-two percent chance that she could overpower and evade a divided asylum force. It was a sound and fairly decent plan, but it wasn't her plan.

For the princess' plan to work, or any plan of hers to work, all she needed to do was get outside, not necessarily by door, once outside, it would be no problem for her to scale the wall and loose any pursuers in the woodland surrounding the asylum. She intended to go upwards and make use of certain facets of the asylum's architecture to aid in her access to the asylum grounds. By making her way to the upper floors, she will be spotted by the cameras. Upon seeing her, her opposition will mobilize to the upper floors, thinking that her intent was to destroy evidence such as photographs and he like to keep her picture from being shown on television, it was one of her earlier escape attempts that saw the use of this tactic. Regardless, the opposition, seeking to corner her on the upper levels will go up the stairs and positions a few people in the shaft. Whilst the guards are hopelessly confused, unorganized, and crammed onto the stairs, she will make her master stroke and be free of this place forever.

But first things first.

Using a swift kick and a stomp, the princess broke away the mop head, leaving the shaft with a decent wooden point. Shuffling the matted and useless cloth to the side, the princess drove the wooden point into the stiff elevator doors, prying them open. Placing the orderly's keys in her pocket and making sure she had a firm hold on the mop handle, the princess ran forward and leapt onto the elevator cables. She climbed upwards slowly with no fear of the elevator activating, since it automatically closed down in the event of a prisoner escape. Not that she could run the damned thing even if it were active, her experiences in the shuttling device had always been a bit of a confining situation, seeing as she was almost always in handcuffs, or a straight jacket, or strapped to a gurney with someone else operating the vessel.

After two floors, the princess had reached her destination. Not that the specific floor mattered, it was more the time it took that mattered. She needed to allow her opponents time, allow the opposition all the time they needed to establish their futile little barricades, allow any stragglers the time they needed to get in exactly the wrong place to stop her. Using the skills that only the most hardened and well trained trapeze artists have spent years acquiring, the princess leaned back and placed the mop shaft on the small ledge between floors. Afterwards, she readied herself and jumped from the cable towards the ledge. Her feet missed the landing by a mile, but that was something for which she was already prepared, her fingers expertly catching the narrow metal space, unfortunately her feet smacked into the hard metal of the shaft wall. She cringed at the surprising and unexpected pain, but she didn't let go of the ledge, the consequences of such an action being all too evident. She had come too far to die in a manner that was so, well, stupid.

She pulled herself up, the pain in her arms and toes being a promise for what was to come. Once on the ledge, she very carefully kicked the shaft handle up to herself, nimbly twisting the handle around so that the pointed end was facing towards the elevator doors. She jabbed the wooden handle into the crevice, and pried the doors open and climbed into the floor, mop handle in hand. The floor she was on, the fifth floor, looked essentially like the floor she'd come from, the third floor. But that wasn't surprising since, with the exceptions of the first floor, sixth floor, and basement, the entire building was a vertical duplicate of itself floor by floor. With that in mind, it was no problem for her to go along the floor, unlocking the gates as they appeared, until finally she reached a janitorial/maintenance closet, she couldn't have hit one of these earlier without possibly tipping off security of her intent. Upon raiding the closet, her heart sang as she found her prize. A stroke of good fortune came in the fact that while she raided the closet in search of a humble screwdriver, she instead found a fully functioning and full powered electric screw-gun.

However the universe is always one of give and take. And while it gave the princess convenience in the form of the screw gun, it gave her inconvenience in the form of three security guards waiting for her at the end of the hall. The princess frowned and mused that they probably had been sent up here in advance in the event that she did try to go for her records again. Security guards were different from orderlies, they had much more extensive training when it came to taking down armed assailants, not that that was going to matter in the least, but it's important to keep all the fact in mind, trivial or no.

The princess sighed and set the screw-gun down. After breaking the mop handle over her knee in two, she turned to face her opponents, and waited, holding a mop end in each hand. While it was true that she was in a bit of a hurry, for obvious reasons, she wasn't going to rush things and screw up. She was going to grant the courtesy of the first move to her enemies, since they were prone to fouling up on the first go, not to mention she could benefit from the brief distraction, the higher up the guards on the stairs got, longer it'd take them to get back down when the time came.

The guards, seeing that the princess would not rush to meet them head on, began to run towards the princess, the largest of the three taking point, arms spread wide incase she tried to run past them, the latter two of the group spread their physical net wider by hanging back a bit and flanking him.

The princess nearly smirked at this, sometimes they were just too predictable. She couldn't tell if it was out of instinct from their training that they moved like this, or if it was really the only plan they could come up with, but she was well aware of what they were trying to do. They intended for her to meet the front man head on, and while she dealt with him, the other two would come at her from the side. In theory it was a rather sound plan, it probably works when used on just anybody, the problem was; the princess was far from being "just anybody".

She waited for them to get in a bit closer before making her move, she didn't want them to be too far away or give them the opportunity to spread themselves out and corner her. When they were in close enough, she got low and sprinted forward, her speed shocking the two back guards, stopping them in their tracks for their eyes to follow her, the larger guard, however, had gained too much momentum to stop, which was what the princess was counting on. She cut towards the wall and jumped towards it, hands in the air. Incredible agility allowed her to not only jump off the wall, but off of the guard front guard, knocking him into the ground, and into the air. As the princess had predicted, the two latter guards had continued to follow her with their eyes, and in order to do so, they had to tilt their heads upwards, leaving their necks wide open. She threw the mop end in her left hand towards the throat of the guard on the right, striking it with the deadly accuracy of a professional knife thrower.

Not one to waste opportunity when it became present, upon her landing, the princess shifted her downward momentum into a forward roll, and ended it with a magnificent sweep that ended with the left guard on his back. Capitalizing on this, before the guard could effectively get back on his feet, or even fight back for that matter, the princess was on her feet, she picked up his left leg and with a firm stomp…

CRUNCH!

"RRAAARGH!"

Bent his knee backwards.

During these few seconds of savage efficiency, the right guard was preoccupied with sputtering and coughing up blood. It was true that the mop end that struck him was blunt and didn't puncture the skin, the princess was nowhere near foolish enough to kill anyone, she had thrown the stick roughly seventy miles per hour, the speed of most minor, and a few major, league baseball pitchers. The princess grabbed the guard by his hair and, using the mop end she was still holding, shattered his jaw. She finished him off by slamming his face into the wall, blood from his mouth splashing horridly upon the white painted brick.

The original guard was finally turning around to find that his two associates had been effectively removed from the fight. It wasn't that the guard was slow, it was that the princess moved that fast. Despite the grim examples his associates on the floor provided of those who stood against the princess unwarily, the guard dutifully refused to let the mad woman loose upon the asylum without seeing resistance. The princess turned to face him, ready to meet his challenge.

The guard rushed forward, and threw a punch, that would have decked the princess and sent her head reeling, if it had connected. Unfortunately, the lithe woman seamlessly sidestepped the blow, grabbing the outstretched arm and using her mop end to…

CRACK!

"OH MY GOOARRGH!"

Break the man's arm at the elbow. Red splashed upon the floor, the princess' blow forcing the skin on the guards arm to give way, and expose a point as his bone had broken through the skin.

The guard fell to the ground, shock and pain overtaking him. The princess went back to get the screw-gun, holding it in one hand and the remaining mop end in the other. She continued down the hall, with no further concern for the guards, the paramedics would be along shortly to tend for them, as usual.

Her path drove the princess further along the corridors which snaked along the perimeter of the building. She passed the final gate, making sure to close it behind herself, relocking it, and breaking off the key in the lock. She then made her way to one of the windows, and looked down. Two stories below was the roof to the asylum's indoor pool, it being an added on section to the asylum as a whole, it was the furthest away from either of the two exits, on the first floor. Being an added on section of the asylum, and one that is significantly low on the asylum's priority list, it often received the short end of the stick when it came to the security renovations that had been going underway within the asylum, meaning that the fire exit was most likely unlocked.

Using the mop end, the princess wasted no time in knocking away the glass in the window. It was just about the time that she heard the sound of heavy footfalls; she looked to the end of the hall, past the gate to see a small mob of guards and orderlies. They all rushed to the gate, ready to unlock it and take out the princess, only to find out that she'd made that impossible. The princess smiled as they were given the order, via walkie-talkies, to circle around and come at her from the other side, even though she'd be long gone by then.

With the glass cleared out of the way it was time for the screw-gun to prove it's worth. It took some doing, but she able to fit the cumbersome tool through the bars which were what stood in the way of certain suicidal patients from feeling…tempted. She worked fastidiously to remove the screws which held the obstructing metal in place. With the task done, all it took was a slight push for the bars to fall away and land with a great resounding crash on the rooftop below. As a last precautionary action, the princess brushed away some of the glass that was remaining on the windowsill, since it just wouldn't do for her escape to be marred by the fact that she had glass her foot.

Pocketing the mop end and abandoning the screw-gun, the princess stepped out onto the narrow sill, astounded by the fact that she had no true notion of exactly how high up she was until she heard the low roar of the cool night wind in her ears. If she was afraid of heights or not was out of the equation, seeing as she'd come too far as is to get cold feet at this point. She just reassured herself that she just needed to be extra careful, the consequences of the alternative interpreting itself as the twisted metal and glass she'd left down below. Her heart pounded loud in her ears as she slowly turned around to face the now smashed and derelict window, the anticipation of what she was about to do acting as a form of unbearable torture all it's own. She took one last swallow of air, licked her lips, and stepped backwards off the ledge.

Her fingers caught the ledge easily, although not painlessly. The princess' chest, toes, stomach, and pretty much everything, excluding her hands, face, and back, slammed painfully into the building with a resounding smack. And as much pain as a stubbed toe , and well, a stubbed everything can bring, the princess made sure not to do something so foolish as to let go, at least not until she was ready. She looked down to realize that it was still possible for her to do this, all she needed to do was place her life in the gamble that she could let go of the building a few more times and grab back on, relatively simple when said, scary as hell when attempted.

The princess released her grip on the ledge, gravity ripping her downwards once more, until she latched onto the bars which were placed on the window of the floor below her, or more precisely, the floor she was on now. She pulled this trick once again, her arms screaming and the abrupt stops and stress. She'd never trained herself for such an act, simply dropping down one floor and stopping, it was something which had yet to be done by her, and she was fairly certain that if she were forced to do it one more time, her arms would probably dislocate themselves from her shoulders. Fortunately, she wasn't required to do as such anymore, at least not tonight, but that wasn't what her current obstacle was.

What currently laid in the princess' way was an unaccounted for element in her plan, such a thing seeming so trivial and insignificant until now. She had forgotten to take into account what would happen to the glass and bars that were knocked away and her answer was provided in several jagged shards, shining menacingly in the moonlight, accompanied by several pieces of sharp metal. Somehow, jumping one floor down, straight down onto twisted metal and broken glass didn't seem to fit very well into her plan, so the princess looked down and back to study the spread of the glass. She was relieved to find that it wasn't that bad, but if she screwed up this next trick, she stood a very good chance of breaking her own neck. It wasn't easy, but she was able to maneuver so that the bottoms of her feet were planted upon the side of the wall. Wanting to make sure she cleared the glass, the princess bent her knees as far as she could, before twisting away from the wall in a jumped. She outstretched her arms forward, with her palms flat and her head tucked downwards. Her hands made contact with the gravelly rooftops, and reflexively, she buckled her arms, so as not to snap her wrists, and pulled her knees to her chest. Her downward momentum became displaced and combined with her forward momentum as she tucked herself into a ball, allowing her to roll a bit across the rooftop.

Returning to her feet, the princess made her way over to the pool's skylight. From here the plan was to drop down into the pool, exit through the fire escape emergency exit, since it was probably unlocked, scale the wall and make her way through the woods, going on for at least three days straight before seeking rest, she'd done it before. After the authorities had been ditched, and she was across the border, she'd be safe enough to resume her search.

Using the mop end, she knocked away the glass in the skylight, her point of entry being above the deep end of the pool. She waited a minute or so before jumping in, making sure that most of the glass had time to sink to the bottom of the pool and lie flat. She jumped into the window, her body straight as a arrow. She hit the water with a…

SPLASH!

She shot trough the water like a jet, which was unsurprising when one considers that she'd leapt from two stories downward. Still, it was a good thing that the pool's deep end was so deep, if she'd tried to land in the shallow end, the princess would've surely broken her legs. As is, she water did it's part to break her fall, but not so much that her feet colliding with the pool bottom didn't cause her pain in her legs from the sudden impact, as well imbed a few shards of glass in her feet. Nothing to too dire, a few pebble sized stabs, nothing that'd stop her escape.

She quickly surfaced and made her way to the pool side where she pulled the pieces out of her foot. She moved towards the fire exit with quick yet jovial saunter, her exhilaration over taking any pain she felt in her foot. She opened the fire exit door with a smile, her first in weeks. The sting of the fresh, cool night air upon her wet skin and clothing went unnoticed, as she spied her final obstacle, one so simple that it was laughable to call it as such. She slowly began to walk towards the obstruction, joy over taking her, her feet moving as if she were in a dream. A simple, grey stone, ten foot tall wall was all that stood between her and freedom. It posed no challenge to her, it even had ivy running several thick vein up and down it's surface. This was it, it'd be the third time she'd genuinely escaped from the asylum, so it was quite the momentous occasion for her. But this was it, she'd finally be free, she'd finally-

"Stop this foolishness at once."

The sharp words shook the princess from her euphoria. Alarmed, she looked around and searched for the source of the voice. She rounded upon a singular red glowing dot of a cigarette in the shadows of the building. The person to whom the cigarette belonged to stepped out of the shadows, even though such and effort was unnecessary, the princess knew full well who it was. A somewhat short, balding, and paunchy middle-aged man thick rimmed glasses and full moon facial hair stepped out of the darkness, standing at an angle that hid one hand and showed the other. He'd once described himself to her as resembling someone named Paul Giamatti, not that she knew nor cared who that was. This was the princess' doctor.

In all honesty, the princess held no real malice towards the guards and orderlies, in fact she felt nothing but shame and guilt over the extreme measures she used to subdue them, she knew full well that they were only following orders. However, their orders were to lock her away, and they were conflictive to her goals. Harming them so brutally was merely a casualty to her, just another part of the process, an unpleasant part, but unavoidable. And while she had sympathy for the guards and orderlies, she held nothing but contempt for the pencil pushers and cowards who ran this place, the doctors and administration respectively. She couldn't stand the entire lot of them, that is, all of them except for Dr. Daniel McPherson, her doctor.

Dr. McPherson had been her doctor ever since the beginning of her imprisonment of this place. He'd been pulled on and off her case countless times, mostly due to the pencil pushers and their lies of him indulging in her "fantasies" as they liked to call her life's story. In truth, Dr. McPherson was the closet to ever shaking her beliefs in her own story. Unlike the other doctors, who had merely looked into the princess's case to boost their own careers, "curing" her standing as something of a pugilist's title shot amongst doctors, Dr. McPherson was the only one who genuinely cared about her. He had come to know her and the way she thinks just as well as she had come to know him, he was in one breath, both her best and only friend, as well as her greatest enemy. He was the only one who genuinely wanted to help her.

Unlike the other doctors, who for the most part all went home at the end of the day, back to their perfect homes, with their perfect lives, far away from the austere, cold and broken reality of the asylum, the place becoming nonexistent to the m once they were in their cars with the doors locked, McPherson was the only doctor who worked over time. He was the only who constantly held temporary residence within the asylum, was the only one who had to be forced to go home, was the only one who wanted to be called in case something came up, and not just to his patients, but to all of them, he was the only doctor who was on call, twenty four hours a day. The princess knew that he only wanted the best for her, his own needs coming after those of his patients, so much so to the fact that it had cost him three marriages.

He didn't like anyone being in the asylum, she knew it pained him to see her locked away, she knew that if she would but only accept his help that she would be free in a matter of months, with a brand new life waiting for her, free of strife and grandstanding escape attempts, she'd truly be free. But, unfortunately, his help came at the price of accepting that her whole life was bunk, and the admittance and accepting of a truth that everyone she'd ever known and loved, never existed. It simply too much for her to handle. If they, all the doctors, and administrators, and even Dr. McPherson were in fact right, and she really was crazy, then all of her work to escape from the asylum would be for nothing, that was something she could live with. However, if they were wrong, and she was right, then far too many people will have suffered and paid the price for nothing, and that was simply unacceptable. That is why she needed to escape and find out.

"What are you doing?" the doctor asked in a voice a parent would use to reassure a child after they've gone into hiding after accidentally wetting the bed.

"I am escaping and leaving this place forever," the princess declared with a snarl, "and there's nothing you can do to stop me." She then turned on heel to leave, making her way towards the wall.

"*sigh*…I really didn't want it to come to this," McPherson said wearily. The princess swiftly turned around to see the doctor reaching into his pocket, at least with the hand she could see. The princess as understandably, shocked and apprehensive as the doctor removed his had from his pocket. However, she was confused to see that as opposed to a weapon, the doctor removed a humble pair of glasses from his pocket. It wasn't until the doctor dropped the glasses upon the ground and placed his foot menacingly over them, did the princess realize the horror that it was the glasses. The glasses were far too important to be destroyed, she told him as such, he knew how important it was that the glasses remain safe, and yet, here they were.

"You. Wouldn't. Dare." The princess snarled, shaking visibly. If it were from rage or fear, it's unlikely that even she could tell you.

"You're making me do this!" McPherson practically shouted, "You can't go around hurt people, you can keep hospitalizing asylum staff. The higher ups are completely fed up with you. They're seriously considering transferring you to the federal penitentiary as opposed to staying here. And if you think this place is intolerable, trust me, it's peanuts compared to the federal prison, and the cutthroat crazies they have their. This place is best for, but I can only defend you so much!"

"Who pushed you to this?" the princess asked, concerned for the doctor, "I swear I shall find them and-"

"You pushed it to this! The asylum is at it's wits end as is, and you keep hammering them, making them go to extremes! Don't you see what you're doing to yourself!?! I want to help you, but you've got to play ball! And if this is the only way, so be it! Go ahead, jump the wall, but if you do, the price is the glasses."

The princess' mind was in turmoil and conflict. This was it, this was freedom for the first time in a long time, and there was no guarantee that she'd ever get this close again. But at the cost of the glasses? For the most part, she hadn't even thought up a coherent plan for when she finally shook the heat, she had no idea what to do or where to go once she was safe, and there was no telling if she'd get caught or not once on the outside. She was torn between two impossible choices, and in that void of uncertainty, she swiftly found a third. She studied, how the doctor was standing. He had sacrificed a lot of balance to stand so that his foot remained hovering over the glasses, she wasn't sure if her plan would work, it was a gamble, but a sound one.

There was an unwritten and unspoken rule among the patients at St. Eisner's, and it went along the lines of no matter what, never, ever, attack your doctor…The princess was never much for rules. She took her mop end, reached back and threw it at the doctor. The wooden end painfully struck McPherson square in the chest, knocking him off balance and on his back. With his foot no longer over them, the glasses were safe. The princess rushed forward to retrieve them when the doctor pointed something at her, the hiss of pressurized air being released called the princess' attention. She looked to see that in the hand she'd wasn't able to see previously, there was a handheld dart gun. A sudden pain caught her attention and she looked to her thigh to metal and red plumage of a tranquilizer dart sticking out of her leg. The pain she felt there quickly disappeared, the target area being hit with a strange yet welcoming numbness that had begun to creep outward from that area, as the potent sedative had already begun to make it's way through her body, being only sped up in it's journey due to the rapid beating of her heart.

It was all over now, it didn't matter if she took the glasses with her now, not even she could fight the potent cocktail that was spreading around inside her. She had only a few minutes, if even that, until she finally went down. She needed hours, days even, not minutes, escape plan was screwed. At least she had enough time to grab the glasses, hop the wall, and hide 'em to ensure that this sort of thing didn't happen again, at least that's what she thought until the fire exit door burst open and an endless line of guards and orderlies began to pour from it. The princess was only able to grab the glasses and throw them to the side so they'd be out of harm's way before meeting her enemies head on. There was no fight this time round, not a real one, the drug's effects were violently taking a hold of her body, her movements were sluggish and sloppy, and she was unable to truly concoct some sort of stratagem, at this point she was fighting the embrace of sleep more than she was fighting her soon to be captors. She was so tired and disoriented that she hadn't even removed the dart from her leg.

At the behest of the doctor to restrain her, the conflict was brought to an end when the guards merely circled the princess, who's movements and attacks were like watching an old, sick, and delirious lion die. The finally closed in on her, but by that point she already tuckered herself out, and she surrendered to unconsciousness and the guards. The incident, had finally been brought to a close.

A team of eight men volunteered to take the princess back to her room, two to carry her and the other six just in case she was faking, no chances, ever, that's what they'd taught themselves. The rest went off to do a double check of The Asylum, for security reasons, as per protocol, with a few others neglecting protocol, going to the infirmary to check on their friends and see the damage the princess caused this time.

That only left Dr. McPherson. He watched the proceedings, letting them close out before making his way over to where the glasses had been thrown. He stood there for a moment and looked down at the spectacles, and contemplated the pros and cons of destroying the glasses there and then. He wasn't proud of what he did, it was low down and despicable, he knew what the glasses were, and true while it was all a part of the princess' lunacy, that it didn't matter if he smashed them or not, that didn't mean he felt any better for taking advantage of the facts surrounding it. In the end, he sighed, picked up the glasses, and put them in his pocket. He mentally scolded himself for doing what could be interpreted as indulging in the patient's fantasies, and wondered what was on TV. It was over…for tonight.

**In dreams, the time is whenever**

Penny was accustomed to strange dreams. Let it be known that this Penny is different from the Penny mentioned earlier in this story, as that Penny was currently lying to a motel check in clerk that she had no pets with her, even though her dog Brain was in the car, going through a bag of Cheetos. No, this was not the same Penny, even though she too had a dog, a very famous one, one that had been on TV, one by the name of Bolt. This Penny was Penny Allard, she was sixteen years old, a former child television star, had red hair, a button of a nose which she hate even though her friends called it cute, and she once thought that her life had come to an end when she first developed acne and got braces, at the same time. Currently, she was having a strange dream.

Not that she was alarmed by this, as I said before, she was accustomed to them. And it is seldom that we show fear in our dreams at the situations, unless of course it's a nightmare, in which case, that's the point. She was however perturbed when they came true.

For instance, many years ago, she had a dream where her feet had swelled so much that they resembled circles, but despite this, she was still capable of running faster than light. The following morning was Christmas day, and she'd gotten a bike that year. Many years after that, she had a dream where she rode atop a giant white wolf into battle against a green eyed cyclops, the next day the casting agency had called to let her mom know that Penny had gotten the part in a pilot episode of "Bolt: The Superdog".

Currently, her dream was going a bit beyond the norm, at least the norm when it came to her dreams. She was in the deep place below the dirt, surrounded by a great deal of odd people and items. The only recognizable face there was the great white wolf, the others were complete strangers, even though she knew them, once again, the dream was weird. Currently, everyone was quite angry at the man-whose-head-was-fire, the-clock-in-the-coat had finished a story which gave an express list of details as to what the man-whose-head-fire had done. Now while all were quite furious at him for his deeds, it was the woman-who-was-so-old-that-rocks-couldn't-remember-her that was absolutely seething with rage, the man-whose-head-was-fire had taken something from her. Seeing that the situation was getting out of hand, the white-faced-tall-man-in-black intervened, not wanting to fight as much as the rest, and tried to appeal to the man-whose-head-was-fire's better nature. The man-whose-head-was-fire did as the white-faced-tall-man-in-black asked, but despite this, the white-faced-tall-man-in-black became sad. The man-whose-head-was-fire had to leave to do something very important.

Then, the boy-with-four-eyes called attention to the walls, with whom everyone got in a fight with. The clock-in-the-coat threw an egg at one wall which burst into light upon hitting the wall, as the great white wolf and the woman-who-was-so-old-that-rocks-couldn't-remember-her ran at another wall. One wall was about lash out at Penny, when she was grabbed by the-boy-who-was-made-of-wind, and wouldn't you know it? Her face

fell off.

**Penny's Room, Oklahoma 12:00am (Witching Hour).**

Penny awoke in a cold sweat. She swiftly looked around her room, her eyes finding all the old waypoints and markers, her computer, her hamster, Rhino's, cage, her closet, Bolt lying by the wastebasket, she took in it all to reassure herself that she was awake and that indeed she was in her room, her observations meeting both criteria. This fact soothed her and calmed her bewildered mind. For some reason, ands she couldn't really explain why, but that dream scared the hell out of her.

"It was just a dream," stated flatly to herself, closing her eyes, writing the phenomena off, chocking it up to the large amounts of Doritos she'd consumed watching the B-movie monster marathon earlier.

"Oh I doubt that," came a deep rolling voice from the darkness, "very rarely is something so devoid of reason, importance, and purpose that it should be cast off as "just a dream"."

Alarmed, Penny quickly looked around her room once more and became doubly alarmed to find a strange man standing at the foot of her bed. The man looked like he was a stand in for a Harry Potter movie, he was rake thin and garbed in blue robes. And if that weren't stereotypical enough, he had a beard that reached below his belt, assuming, that he wore one under his robes, and a tall hat sat upon his head, adorned with pictures of the stars and moon. He appeared to have simply materialize out of thin air in the less than a second Penny had her eyes off that exact spot, so she did what any sensible person would do.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?!" Penny shouted at the top of her lungs, alarmed and enraged that this old man had snuck into her room in the middle of the night. Her shouting alarmed both the pets that were in the room at the moment, and while the hamster was incapable of doing anything except chatter a lot and leave hamster chocolate among the wood chips of his cage, Bolt was up and growling at the old man, his teeth capable of delivering a decent if not powerful bite.

For some reason, the old man could not help but smile at this. But returning to the question that was posed to him, the geezer gave a curt nod and with a tip of his hat, spoke, "I am and the great wizard Yen Sid, and it's high time that we talked about your future Ms. Penny Allard."

"…Riiiight," Penny stated skeptically as she reached for her baseball bat which lay in the space between the bed and the wall, she really hoped that this creep wasn't carrying a gun.

Before Yen Sid could do anything, Penny had grabbed the bat and leapt out of bed and hit Yen Sid in the head. Or at least she would have, had he not disappeared in a flash of smoke and light. The dumbfounded teenager lay on the floor a second. Her lunge having failed her, she was left wondering where the creep had got to. Her question was answered a moment later, when Bolt's barking heralded the strange old man's reappeared a few feet in front of her. There was silence for a few seconds, save for the dog's yelping, Penny then gritted her teeth before she spoke, giving the devil his due, "Okay, so you're fast…and quiet, I'll at least admit that."

"You still doubt my claim?" Yen Sid asked coolly.

The redhead scoffed, "Gramps, let me brake it to ya. For most of my life, I've been around some of the most impressive and state of the art equipment known to show biz today, a couple of fire crackers and a few smoke pellets ain't going to cut it. So unless you pull a dragon out of your ass right here and now, I'm going to start screaming for my mom to call the cops, and I continue trying to wail on you with the bat."The Wizard's face had a faint grin on it "Splendid. You're not gullible and stupid. I'd expect no less from you. But I think you'll accept a somewhat less crude show of proof."

"Get the hell out of my house," Penny growled, gripping the bat tightly, her heart beating a million miles a minute.

It was strange set up how the two people were standing. Penny's room had two windows, on by her bed and the other on the wall that lead to the door to bed, the moon shone through the second window. The crazy old man walked slowly from his corner, for a moment Penny had hoped he was leaving, but he'd walked to place himself in front of the second window, the moonlight silhouetting him fantastically. Ignoring the show of force from the bat and the growls of the dog that stood between him and the girl, Yen Sid reached up his hand to cover Penny's view of the moon outside. This irritated Penny greatly, that this mad man was not leaving as he pantomimed grabbing the moon between his thumb and forefingers. She didn't understand why she wasn't simply wailing on the old loon right now, why she was restraining herself from attacking.

She was about to attack him, listening to her better judgement, when it was all gone, the man, the room, everything had become swallowed in a sudden and inexplicable darkness. Scared, angry, and confused, Penny rushed forward, blindly swinging the bat. She stopped only when she realized that she'd come all too close to breaking her own window. Light returned to the room as her bedside lamp turned itself on, and the old man now stood where Penny was standing, clearing his throat to call Penny's attention. She spun around, Bolt at her side, ready to rush the old man again, when he tossed her something. She caught it easily, it was gray and the size of an apple, although it felt much heavier.

Driven by some unknown reasoning that was not her own, Penny turned the object around in her hand. It was a stone, a strange little rock, all full of holes, well more craters, since none of the pock marks went all the way through. She turned the rock over and over, before realizing where she had seen it before, in photos and footage of astronauts, and everytime she looked up at a clear night's sky. Penny Allard was holding the Moon. "No" she thought out loud, "this is impossible." She was still was still in disbelief when it occurred to her that it was darker outside. She spun around to look out the window, and despite there being no clouds or anything else obscuring her view of the night's sky, no matter how hard she looked, she could no longer find the moon, except perhaps, in her hand.

It's a strange feeling, fear. It's a powerful feeling, an ancient one, the first feeling any species develops to survive. Fear is powerful, fear is potent, the realization of what the old man had done filled her with it. Her mind became filled with images and ideas, old movies, scary movies, screams in the dark, screams in the shower, 'let's split up', 'I'll be right back', the roar of chainsaws. Penny Allard turned to face Yen Sid, thoroughly afraid, she scarcely took notice of Bolt, still ready to attack should she give the call.

It seemed like a bad joke really, a small white dog ready to attack a being of unimaginable power. He'd plucked the moon from the sky as if it were a peach from a tree. Her heart was beating a million miles a minute. She noticed that she wasn't acting as swiftly as she normally would, or as rationally, did he have something to do with that as well? What would she do if he did? What could she do? Should she run? Could she run? Would he let her? What would he do if she tried? What was he going to do now? Penny didn't know. She couldn't know. She thought about running, she was certain that wouldn't work, she thought about fighting, that had already proved to be ineffective, then she thought about running again, and then at some point it occurred to her that she couldn't breathe. She fainted.

"Unfortunate," Yen Sid commented on that specific turn, the situation would go much more smoothly if she were awake. He strode forward, but his path was impeded by Bolt, who was still growling angrily at Yen Sid. Now this intrigued the wizard greatly, animals were different than humans, as most humans were separated and cut off from the flow of the universe, animals on the other hand were well attuned to it, they communicated through it, and as such they were well aware of when magic was afoot, and Yen Sid was one of great magic indeed. The dog didn't have a snowball's chance should the wizard choose to become deadly, Yen Sid knew this, Bolt knew this, yet despite the there being no chance of survival for him, he chose to stand and stay with the girl. Yen Sid smiled, for this information gave him reassurance that his actions were the right ones.

However, the dog was still in the way. Yen Sid looked Bolt in the eye and enlightened him. Instantaneously, Bolt gained an understanding, he knew what had happened, part of what will happen, and how things are supposed to be. Bolt hid his fangs for the moment and stepped aside, he made his choice, and he stood with Penny, now Penny needed to make her own.

The Wizard strode over and placed two fingers upon her forehead. He filled her with energy, and removed some of the anxiety that had caused her to get into such a state to begin with. He didn't want to keep having to repeat this process all night, a process which, by the way, was not entirely painless.

Penny shot up like a bolt her every nerve feeling as though they were on fire for the most fleeting of moments. She clutched her chest in a swift spasm of pain. She got up off the floor and was disappointed to find Yen Sid still in her room, standing a few feet away from her. For some reason she didn't feel as afraid as she previously had, and was bold enough to be more direct with the wizard. She was quite out of breath, but she began with the most important question in the list, "What the hell…are you…doing in…MY house?"

A sly and sardonic grin slithered across the old man's face before he answered, "The answer to that question is so complex and carries so many different answers, many of which are so beyond the comprehension of even the most sophisticated human minds that if I were to explain it to you, not only would you not believe me, but you'd also be driven insane. Unless of course you question was pertaining more so to my being in your room, in which case the answer is quite simple; I'm here to make you dreams come true, along with a few nightmares."

Penny was about to ask another question when everything changed, and she noticed something quite important, they weren't in her room anymore. In fact they weren't anywhere near her room anymore, or her house, or even her town, they were underwater.

She closed her eyes, and slowed her breathing, breathing that she shouldn't even be capable of doing given the current circumstances. Did her best to calm herself in this current situation, which was practically impossible as she felt the lull and weight of the waves enveloped her. She finally opened her eyes and turned her head to get a better look at this new environment and saw her loyal dog Bolt, had been transported with her as well, he was currently chasing a school of small fish, his feet sending up small clouds of sand as he padded along the ocean floor. The ocean was a beautiful place, they were near some sort of coral reef, and she watched as fish of every shape and size cut through the water like multicolored knives and an endless parade of crabs skittered across the sand. Then suddenly, it occurred to her that there was someone quite important missing from the picture, she looked around in earnest, searching to find what had happened Yen Sid. Her search ended when she found the old man sitting on top of a large rock, waiting for her to finally get the lead out and continue the discussion.

"What are we doing here?" Penny asked directly, a steam of bubbles coming from her mouth as she did so. She remembering that she was still angry at the wizard, or at least momentarily forgetting her fear of him. Somehow, it came as no surprise to her that she could still speak in such a place, and she continued, "And more importantly how is it that I am still alive?"Yen Sid who had his eyes closed for the moment, cracked one eye open "You are kept alive by my power, as for why we are here, it helps me think. Now if you'll excuse me, there are other matters that call for my attention." And with that, Yen Sid closed his eyes and focused on whatever men of great and infinite wisdom focus upon when their eyes are closed.

So, Penny waited, and waited and waited. It took roughly about an hour or so before it occurred to Penny that she might be here for quite sometime. In that time, she decided to take a mental stock of where she was and how her life had gone recently. Five hours ago, she was going to bed after watching some gag reality show, lying to her mom that she would take out the trash before she went to sleep, and lying to herself that she'd do it first thing in the morning. In that short period of time, she'd been woken up by a wizard, held the moon in her hand, and gone to the bottom of the ocean without any scuba gear whatsoever, oh, and she brought her dog along for the ride.

Then it finally dawned upon her, whilst she had been prattling on with the wizard, she forgot to keep tabs on the mutt. She searched for where the dog had got off too and began to wander the paths and lee ways offered by the corals. She finally reached a clearing of sand, she looked back and was surprised to find how far she got in such a short time, Yen Sid was a barely visible blue lump on an otherwise black hill. She walked further into this clearing, and began to feel pain in her feet. She looked down to find that she'd been walking on the bones of a great score of fish, she then felt eyes upon her and new that this was a bad place. She turned around to find a shark already upon her. She stared head on as several rows of sharp, gnashing, merciless teeth swiftly came at her, she didn't even have time to scream.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a giant blur of white side swiped the shark. Penny stared in shock as the two forms, one white and one grey disappeared into the darkness or large coral cave. Penny turned to see the shark swim out and away from the darkness of the hole, leaving a trailing red cloud in it's wake as it fled, the sharks blood poured from several deep gashes in it's side. But that's not what held Penny's attention. She turned her gaze back to the hole, and was horrified to see two fierce looking, glowing green eyes staring right back at her.

So, very logically, and very quickly, Penny did what any sensible person would do, she ran. Penny turned tail and cut down the path she had come from, making a mad dash for Yen Sid. She ran faster than she ever had in her entire life, the water slowing and restricting her every movement. She ran so fast and hard that it felt like her legs were ready to explode, and when she hit that point, she ran a little more. Afraid for her life, Penny jetted through the maze of coral, looking for any way to escape the nightmare she seemed to be entrapped or at least the part of it that was behind her. In her panic, Penny lost her way back to Yen Sid, so it should serve as no surprise to you that she eventually found herself in a dead end, Penny on the other hand almost had a heart attack and dropped on the spot. With nowhere to run and the stone and coral being too sharp and jagged to climb, Penny turned around, wanting to at least see whatever it was that was going to kill her, it was a decision she immediately regretted.

Standing before her, as impossible as it sounds, was the biggest wolf Penny had ever seen. It was something out of a Tolkien novel, the wolf was the size of a horse, covered in brilliant white fur marred only around the muzzle as it had splashed it's mouth with the sharks blood. It's mouth hung open and panting to reveal huge, sharp teeth the size of sabers, it was a four legged nightmare, and Penny didn't stand.

"It was unwise of you to run off like that," came a stern voice from above. Penny turned and looked up to Yen Sid standing atop the mass of stone and coral, staring down at her with the piercing gaze of a hawk.

"Okay I get it," Penny began, doing well to hide the sheer unbridled terror she felt, "Now call your dog."

"It is not my dog."

"Oh yeah? Then who's is it?"

"It's yours."

The answer came out of left field and hit Penny right between the eyes. Thoroughly confused, Penny turned to look at the white beast once more. Her eyes scanned the monster, her mind and memory working quickly to fill in the blanks. The sharp ears, the proud stance, the sharp fangs, the wild and spotless fur. This was The Great White Wolf. But there was more to it than that. The round nose, the way the tail wagged from just staring at her, and those eyes that just loved to chase carrots.

"…Bolt?" Penny queried tentatively.

"ARRF!" Bolt replied, his bark now booming. The dog then rushed Penny and proceeded to lick her face, no longer needing to jump in order to do it.

It took some doing, but Penny was able to push Bolt back long enough to return her focus on Yen Sid, her courage and anger returning, "Look this is all fine and dandy but what is it you want out of me?"

The shapes on the Wizard's hat moved a second before he spoke, "It is quite simple, I want you to save the world."

"Oh yeah, good one, pull the other leg while you're at it."

"It is no joke."

"Really?" Penny retorted skeptically, "If that's true then why don't you do it yourself if you're so "high and Mighty" huh? If you're capable of all this and more, I don't see any reason to bring me in on this."

The remained wizard unfazed by the remark and stated, "There are precisely three million, fifty eight thousand, two hundred, and forty four perfectly good answers I could give to answer your question to that effect. I can send you a list of them if you like, but for now, let's just say that I'm lazy."

"Doubt that. So why me? Why was I chosen? I'm no genius, but I know that there are definitely other people more certified for the job."

"Instead of asking why you were chosen, you should be asking yourself what you will do now that you are chosen. Will you follow my instructions and save the planet upon which you live?" Yen Sid asked sternly, reaching behind his back to swat away a tentacle that was trying to grab him.

"Do I have a choice?" asked the redhead, "Way I see it, saying no could be real hazard to my health."

"Of course you do. Whether in prison, or in a palace, every person has an incalculable amount of choices they can make. And you too can make a choice right now, and make many more thereafter. You can choose to not accept the path which I offer you, I'll return you to the life you had prior to this meeting."

"But who's going to save the world? It's not much of a choice, working for you or annihilation."

The Wizard stepped backward to let a shark pass, before speaking again, "Oh, by no means undergo fear. As you have pointed out, there are other, more qualified, individuals from which I can choose. I will simply ask one of them, and the world will go on as usual. You will be allowed to fully live out your life, free of any memory of this meeting happening."

The former actress considered the pros and cons of that before asking, "Okay, and what's the catch? What happens should I choose to take the job?"

"Then you will be given a life like no other. It will be filled with great pain and suffering, as all lives are, and the dangers will be great, there is by no means a guarantee of old, or even middle age for that matter. But there will also be many rewards along the way, both great and small. And it is sure to contain something that you've been lusting after for a long time."

"And that is?"

"Adventure. You've been bored for quite some time haven't you?"

That hit Penny at her core. True, she still took the occasional acting job, because, you know, old habits die hard, but it wasn't enough for her. She wanted to do great things, amazing things, she didn't know what they were, but she knew it was something more than hitting stuntman b and letting him fall off to the side and onto the safety net.

"…Well?" Yen Sid cut in, breaking Penny from her reverie.

"I'm thinking," she said curtly, biting her lip as she weighed the consequences of the choice before her. It was quite a bit to take in one sitting, she had no idea what she wanted to do tomorrow, much less for the rest of her life, she doubted this deal would go on only for a day or so, and that's not even confronting the fact that she now had to accept the existence of magic. And what was that bit about no guarantee of old age? True, she was looking for a little action, but she wasn't stupid. She was certain this endeavor would step on the toes of one two less than benevolent individuals, and if this Yen Sid freak was one of the good guys, she'd hate to run into the bad guys. But that's probably what Bolt's change was intended for. Not to mention no one lives forever. So…to hell with it.

"Your Answer?" Yen Sid asked coolly.

"Okay, I'll do it."

Yen Sid's face did not change expression, as if he knew her answer in advance, "I know. Wait for the white-faced-tall-man-in-black, he'll know where to go."

**Penny's Room, Oklahoma 12:01am**

Penny awoke in a cold sweat and sat straight up like a rocket. She looked herself up and down, and sweat aside, she was bone dry. She turned and looked out the window, the moon was right where it was supposed to be, craters and all.

"It…was just a dream?" Penny mused, feeling let down and confused, staring at the lumps in her blanket that indicated the location of her feet. It was a relief sure, but also a disappointment, to be so worked up over something so supposedly incredible, only to be let down even faster. She'd get over it, sure, but she still felt cheated.

"Hey Bolt, have you ever had one of those dreams where you think you wake up, but it's just-" Penny's words stopped dead in her throat. At some point during her question, Penny had turned to look at her pet, only to find him staring straight back at her, the size of a horse. As amazing as this may sound, Penny was unsurprised, and Bolt only managed to look quizzically back at her, as if waiting for the answer.

Her cat Mittens, however, was a different story. The small mass of grey and white fur waltzed in, took one look at the mutt, and keeled over on the spot. Penny jumped up to make sure her cat was breathing. Mittens was fine, sure enough, but her reaction called to attention a rather serious problem.

"Man," Penny said looking back at Bolt, "Mom's going to flip when she sees you. There's no way I can explain this. I can't even hide you, not unless I can get you through the door, which I can't…S*** I have no idea what I'm going to do."

That's when something caught her eye. It was a simple, almost trivial little thing, but it was resting on her bed where she herself had been not half a minute before. It was a small, purple drawstring bag, emblazoned with gold lettering, which read, "The Big Bag of Good Advice."

This definitely wasn't here when I fell asleep, she thought to herself. Anxious, she picked up the bag and looked inside to find fortunes. The inside of the small bag was filled with nothing but little scraps of paper one would expect to find inside an actual fortune cookie. She pulled out several of these small scraps, everyone of them had some helpful hint or another on everything from oral hygiene to summer travel plans, none of the messages pertained to her current problem however.

"This thing's useless," Penny said sourly. It was then, as she was putting the scraps of paper back in the bag, that she read the last one in her hand; It helps if you close your eyes.

Feeling that she had nothing to lose, Penny, closed her eyes and reached into the bag, her hand felt around for a few seconds before she pulled out a fortune that read, Good dogs like to obey their masters.

She put the bag down and turned to Bolt "Bolt, um, geez, how do I put this? If it isn't too much to ask, could you shrink if you can, I don't know how you feel about being big but I need you smaller because we need to make sure that no one knows about this. Do you understand?"

It took a moment, but Bolt reared himself back like he used to when he performed his super bark. Then, with a booming "ARRK!" Bolt vanished in a black cloud of odorless smoke. The smoke dissipated quickly enough, and when it did, Penny saw that her dog had been returned to it's original size. "Good boooy!" Penny said, kneeling down to ruffle the dog's fur. The sound of heavy footsteps shook Penny from this action. She looked up to find her mom standing in the doorway.

"…Did you just hear that?" she asked.

"Penny turned around, looked back at her bed to find that the small bag had vanished. "No," she replied, "It was probably just a dream."

**The Robinson House, California 12:00am (Witching Hour).**

Cornelius wheeled his chair back and let out a great yawn. Ever since his meeting with Inspector Gadget he'd been working around the clock to see the program to it's fruition, even going so far as to put all other projects on hold in order to complete the translation program. He despised redoing old work, especially completed work. It was one thing to work on an unfinished project, because then there was the prospect for new work and ideas to come in once the discovery of what went wrong was made. But to recreate an entire old project from scratch, exactly the way it was before, there was simply no area for new ideas, no chance at something new, in short, he couldn't keep moving forward, and he hated that. However, he was grateful that is his hatred, he at least had his regular clothes back on. There was nothing like getting out of a smelly safety suit that made you gain an appreciation for your good old clean ensemble of red knickerbockers, white shirt and blue sweater-vest. The safety suit from the green house had clung to him like a second skin by the time he finally left the building and peeled it off. He surmised that that it wasn't an entirely horrid idea to install either an air conditioner in the building, or lessen on the padding in the suit by the time he went in to work on the model galaxy some more.

He stretched and shuddered a little. He was currently alone in his lab, the only light came from his computer monitor. It was Bud and Lucille's anniversary, they wanted Cornelius to come along, in fact, they had planned for him to do as such, but he explained to them how important it was that the inspector brought this case to an end, and how it required his work and immediate attention. Bud and Lucille, being the wonderful and understanding parents they were, were wonderful and understood completely, going out on the town with Cornelius' well wishes and the promise that they'd be back late.

He typed in one last line of code, yawned again, and rolled away from the computer desk again. He was tired, he was haggard, he was frayed, he could now safely say it was time to call it a night. He been up for the last two days straight working on the program, and he could probably go for several more if he resorted to using the caffeine patch, but he wasn't so sure about Lucille's guarantee of no side effects. Not to get anything confused, he thought the world of Lucille, the same going for his other parent as well, but there were times where either one or the other was just a tad bit off, and the end results were disastrous, that's not to say he was completely without fault either. But all these were arguments for another time, right now, he was tired and he was going to bed.

"Was" being the key word in the last sentence, for as he reached to save his work and shut down the machine, something caught his eye. He looked out the window to see someone coming up the road to the house. Well more something, not someone, the beauty of living so far away from everything is that it's hard for surprise guests to be much of a surprise, that and your average Jehovah's witness tends to shy away from going so far out of their way to wake you up on a Saturday, not to mention it's highly unlikely that you average girl scout is so insistent and desperate to get that bumble bee badge that they go all the way to the Robinson house. And while all of the mentioned benefits are equally fantastic, let's return attention to the first of the three mentioned.

It was fairly dark out, the moon probably hidden behind a grouping of clouds no doubt. If it weren't for that, Cornelius would've never noticed the car coming up the road, especially after it shut it's lights off from a bit away. Cornelius shut off the computer, so that the monitor light's reflection on the window would not disrupt his view. Cornelius hadn't been expecting Bud and Lucille to be back so early, but then again, their version of a good night's sleep ranged from thirty-two hours to a mere twenty minutes, so "late" could range from any number of conceivable time sets. However, as the car pulled off the road and onto the long driveway of the Robinson home, Cornelius could easily see that it was not the Robinson's blue stanza that was making it's way towards the house, but a black sedan, although he couldn't be sure in the dark.

But that left the young genius somewhat puzzled and baffled at the identity of the late evening/early morning visitor. Even the most earnest and powerful corporations had at least the decency, not to mention common sense, to wait until daybreak before sending a representative, and never sent one after ten, that's just common business etiquette. Cornelius then deduced that it could possibly be the inspector, arriving with another revelation in the case that would require the young inventor's expertise. Cornelius would have to remember to scold him about arriving so late, or at least failing to call ahead again, it's not like the inspector could actually lose his cell phone, it was built into him for crying out loud. Not that Cornelius actually gave the inspector a phone number, but being digital detective meant he should at least competent enough to discover that on his lonesome.

Regardless, Cornelius continued to watch the car until it came to a stop, and he became even more vexed as the person who stepped out was far from any Inspector Gadget. He was obviously shorter than the cyborg, and wore a black body suit as opposed to the inspector's Dick Tracy style get up. Cornelius was a bit intrigued as to which doorbell this peculiar late night visitor would choose in calling for attention. However, the inventor's youthful curiosity quickly shifted to full on primal fear, when the man moved in the darkness to reveal that he was holding a shotgun. He aimed it at the door and fired, the fact that Cornelius didn't hear a thing, particularly the crack of gunfire, meant that this man was an assassin and was professional enough to have a silencer upon his gun, not that it mattered, as far away from everything else as they were, there could've been twenty marching bands playing their hearts out at the Robinson home, and no one would've been any the wiser.

With the door no longer blocking his path, the gunman wasted no time in entering the house to search for his target. Cornelius, upon seeing this, became increasingly panic stricken, but calmed down enough to begin looking at his lab. Cornelius has always been possessive of a highly inventive mindset, and any time when an inventor seeks to create something, it is because they see a problem and try to come up with a solution. The question and it's inevitable answer. Putting his emotions in the backseat of his mind, Cornelius looked at his lab, and calmly began to invent solutions to a rather pressing problem at the moment. The question of course being; "a man with a shotgun has just entered your home, what do you do?"

The assassin stalked the halls of the Robinson home, in search of his target. But in all honesty, he didn't know where to look. This place was massive, it wasn't even a real house, it was a government space research center back in the fifties, and even then it was massive. There were just so many rooms and places to search, it could take him all night. Deciding to go up a flight of stairs, the gunman began to contemplate what exactly it was he was about to commit.

To tell the truth, the task that night didn't sit too well with him. Killing a child isn't an easy thing to live with after all. However, ever since the fiasco with Bradford, he'd been catching a lot of heat from his boss. And true, while the guy may be a deranged nut case, he was the deranged nut case who was in charge of writing the checks. The assassin had his finger rub against the metal collar around his neck to remind himself that the money wasn't the only thing his boss was in charge of.

To most, the Robinson house can be quite an imposing place, it's many twists and turns leaving no end to the possibilities for any number of surprises. That of course does not take into the number of hiding spaces that were to be found. Constantly the assassin thought he heard breathing from behind this set of drapes, or felt eyes fall upon him from under that table. That of course isn't taking into account the fact that the floors were carpeted, masking his steps, and if they were masking his steps, they could certainly mask others. Not that he was too afraid. His suit couldn't be pierced, it was guaranteed to block any conventional knife or bullet, not that he was impervious, the ache he felt every morning from when that freak chucked the air vent at him was a sound reminder of that. But the carpet would muffle anyone's footsteps quite well, if they were trying to be quiet anyways. Meaning that at anytime someone could sneak up at any time and-

The gunman swiftly swiveled on the spot, gun at the ready, coming face to face with absolutely nothing. He chastised himself for his actions, he was acting like this was the first time he'd done this. He was forgetting that it was not only his job, but his life to be the predator, not the prey. Although, in his defense, with some of the claims his boss had made, it was hard to be in that mindset. For his part, taking it out grown men and women had no real emotional baggage to it. They lived their lives, had their chance, they screwed up big, end of story, cash the check and go home to Candy. But, it was hard to factor things that way with a kid. Seriously, how the f*** do you screw up so that someone else can say "he had it coming" about you at age thirteen? Nevertheless, the kid was the target, and he was the arrow, make it quick, make it quiet, no backing out. Ever.

He stopped, the gunman not wanting the shifting of carpet fibers to muffle the sound, whatever it was. He strained his ears, stopped breathing himself to catch the hint of it, although the sound of his own heart did nothing to help the detection. All his efforts worked stunningly to allow him to hear it. It was faint and far of, but it definitely happening. He suspected that it was coming from one of the upper tiers of the building, so he made his way to the closest stairs possible, navigating as best he could. His search paid off splendidly, as it got louder, whatever it was. He went higher, his ears leading him to the source being up the next floor. The context clues of his journey as he stalked the halls being wall paper and unused carpeting. The house was receiving a makeover from the ground up, literally, so this floor, and probably the next had no silencing carpet but instead the ever dreaded wood.

Now that he was close enough, the assassin was able to make out that someone up stair was moving quite a lot of stuff around, he could even see the light trickle down the spiral stair that lead up to the person's position. All he needed to do was creep up the stairs and-

CREEEEK!

The assassin silently swore, damned old floor boards were often a more capable detection device than most electronic states of the art this these days. He just hoped that whoever it was upstairs didn't hear-

Click.

The light from the room upstairs cut off, leaving the hall in darkness. Whoever it was knew that the assassin was there and why. Knowing that his cover had been blown, the gunman rushed forward and tromped noisily up the stairs. He came into what appeared to be a shop class mixed with a garage sale and science fair. The place was an utter mess, even with the relatively small light the came into the room from the windows he could see that, which in itself was odd, since it was a full moon by the time he entered the place. He switched on the goggles that were built into the visor of his suit, although it didn't improve things by much.

It'd be like looking for a hay in a needle stack. Well, maybe not as painful or daunting as that, but certainly as frustrating. Everywhere the gunman looked were endless piles of cloth, mile high stacks of paper, and just junk without seemingly any real purpose. There was no real start or end to the number of places his target was hiding in this room.

He cautiously moved forward into the room when-

FWUMP!

He slipped and fell, not exactly the most graceful or predatory thing to do while trying to keep quiet. In a quick search to find out what exactly he'd tripped on, he picked up several smalls plastic balls that looked like over sized marbles or under sized golf balls. Upon being moved so quickly, they all eerily lit up like Christmas tree lights. Throwing the ones he'd picked up on the ground and kicking the others out of the way, he squinted his eyes a bit as even the minute amount of light they provided was too bright for the goggles. Removing the goggles, he became annoyed when the orbs lights died down. He kicked the lot, which lighted up once more due to the sudden motion, and gave him clear light under some of the tables. Unfortunately the boy wasn't there. He walked deeper into the lab, checking every nook and cranny possible.

"HI THERE!"

The gunman whirled around at the source of the voice. In the slight darkness and confusion all he saw was a figure rushing at him with glowing white eyes and flailing arms. The assailant, who was heavier than first imagined, tackled the hitman to the ground, arms still flinging about. The gunman quickly knocked the guy off, and put the muzzle of the shotgun to his chest.

Pof!

The silencer made a whisper of the thunder from the shot. Getting up, the meticulous killer looked down to see that he'd just been given the runaround by a 1950's throwback, a grey tinker toy robot on a metal dolly. Looking to see what set it off, he saw that the dolly was bungeed to a table adjacent to where the robot was, it must've been pulled forward when he stepped on the cord. Another little left for him by the target.

beep! beep! beep!

The alarm at his side went off to inform him that someone was trying to jack his ride. He rushed to one of the windows, knocking inventions off the tables as he ran. Looking down, he saw the target. The little bastard must've given him the slip, the kid left him to play hide and seek while he rushed down the stairs. Currently, the target was trying the gunman's car door, finding it locked, giving up and running across the Robinson house lawn. A razor sharp grin spread across the contract killer's face. "Gotcha."

Cornelius was quite out of breath at this point, he'd never been forced to run so hard before in all of his life. He was currently running across the expansive lawn of the Robinson home, e didn't know how long the distractions in his lab would keep the hitman busy. After the bid to steal his car had failed, Cornelius decided it was best to hide in the greenhouse. He had one last idea on what to do if the gunman should find him. That "if" turned into a "now" as the grass near to the left of Cornelius got shredded apart. The young inventor looked back to see that the gunman was quite a ways away from him, cursing and reloading. Proper incentive now at his back, Cornelius caught his second wind, and ran faster than he ever thought was possible for him, he needed to act quickly now.

The hitman gritted his teeth as the brat rushed to some strange black green house. Picking up the pace, he rushed to the green house door, only to find it locked. Annoyed, he took his shotgun and blasted the handle and lock and proceeded to kick the door off it's hinges. Stepping into the pitch black environment, the gunman reactivated his night vision goggles, the minimal light filtering in from the entrance worked to illuminate the room perfectly to his vision. He was irked to find even more of the orbs scattered along the floor or this place as well. It didn't matter though, he could kill the kid blind right now, just by listening to the clink and crunch of a monkey wrench, coming from behind the huge machine at the back of the room.

"End of the line," the gunman said, tromping into the room. He didn't take pleasure in his work, not really. To him it was just a job, the only thing he was good at. As if to answer his declaration, he heard a click come from the machine.

All of a sudden, the orbs began to vibrate, lighting up almost immediately. This batch was much brighter than the ones in the house, so much so that the gunman was completely blinded in the goggles. He was about to remove them when he felt the pelting. At first it was light, a few brushes here and there, he was afraid that the kid might've gone past him, since he no longer heard anything other than the tapping upon his body. But then the pelting grew worse in a matter of seconds, and what was once annoying tapping progressed into heavy rain, then on into hail, then finally it just felt like bunch of people were punching the crap out of him. He was hurt, blind, and panicking fast. He was going to fire in the direction he remembered seeing the large machine at, when he felt some powerful force begin pull the shotgun away from him. He tried to hold on, but it was like playing tug-o-war with a gorilla, he finally had to let go when on of the orbs smashed into his ring and middle fingers on his left hand, breaking them instantly. The metal collar around his neck began to be pulled on as well, choking him slightly.

"ARRRGH!" He was in real trouble now. His suit was designed so that it could not be penetrated or cut by any conventional means, you'd need a diamond spear and a hell of a through to run him through, bullet became beestings and knives even less than that. However, it was also designed to be flexible and cloth-like, meaning that if offered little protection against blunt force. If one was hit by a truck in the suit, they'd still get snapped in half. So walking into the green house, as designed as the suit was, he might as well have been going in naked. Hurt, weaponless, and blind, the hitman clutched his hand to his chest, but that didn't stop the parade of blows that were steadily raining down him from all directions. The pain was unbearable and constant, he soon felt his ribs begin to fracture and break, the pain from this brought him to his knees. What finally took him out was one final strong blow to the side of his face that nearly shattered his jaw.

Once Cornelius saw the man go down, he shut off the super magnet. He had hugged the side of it during the entire duration of it being turned on. He'd tinkered with it a bit to increase the speed at which the orbs flew. He looked around to see that this decision had rendered more than just a few holes in the sides of the greenhouse windows. He clapped to turn on the greenhouse lights before walking over to where his would-be killer lay unconscious. The inventor used his foot to roll the man from his side and onto his back, movement of his chest and the groan elicited from the action confirmed for Cornelius that the man was still alive. He looked for the shotgun which was quite some way away, having been pulled away from it's owner by the chaotic pull of the super magnet. Cornelius felt that it was probably best that the weapon was in his hands rather than in the hands of the man on the ground, should he wake up, not that Cornelius knew how to handle a shotgun, but he'd seen enough movies to understand how it went, not to mention he was a fast learner. After grabbing the weapon Cornelius walked back to stand over the assassin's unconscious form.

Suddenly, the killers eyes shot wide open. Cornelius backed off as he began to wildly spasm and freak out. He lay on the floor, making choking sounds, foaming at the mouth, his hands reaching out like a helpless beetle that had been turned over on it's back. The gunman, spasming out as he was, removed his goggles, and this eyes fell upon Cornelius. Taking notice of the inventor, the gunman reached into his suit side pocket and pulled out a letter, his hand twitching and shaky all the while. The letter had an address and was for a Candice Aaron, the gunman held it out to Cornelius, who in turn cautiously took the letter. With that done, the hitman allowed his hand to fall to the ground.

"I'm sorry, kahk!" The gunman said to Cornelius, his breathing haggard, and his words being forced out through tightly grit teeth, "…It was halk!...just…business."

With that, the killer's eyes grew cold and glazed, he stopped moving, he stopped breathing, Cornelius waited for a few minutes, the man was stone dead, there was no question about that. The inventor bent down to see what caused the man's death, on the spot investigation not being his forte. His search lead him to study the man's thick metal collar, which was somewhat loose fitting. On the inner ring, Cornelius saw a small hole, and from it, sticking into the late killer's neck, was a hypodermic needle, he'd been poisoned.

To say Cornelius was smart was an understatement in it's highest form. The boy was a walking embodiment of wit and intellect. However, for all his wit, for all his intelligence, for all his imagination, he could not think of what he was going to do next.

And now for something completely different...reviews

Dread Pirate Rackham: Thank you for your compliment Rackham it's very much appreciated and actually I was thinking about trying to get this published someday I hope you'll enjoy this chapter

Masterofhearts1313: we thank you much for your words and as for your question well you're reading the second chapter aren't you?

Heckfan: I hope I haven't disappointed you but Grimm Gun wrote the last chapter I did write part of this one though

Grimm Gun

Hey, Hey kids! First and foremost sorry for the time it took to update, it's mostly my fault, so if you got tomatoes to toss about the update time, sling 'em this way. And now to lick boots where boot lickin' is due, let's talk back to those crazy kids we all know and love; The Reviewers.

Dread Pirate Rackham: Well thanks, it's always nice to hear that my work makes someone out there smile. Sorry for taking so long, I hope the length of this update makes up for the wait.

MasterofHearts1313: Well, as bad as the original movie was, and as horrifyingly terrible as it's sequel was, I felt Gadget deserved at least one incarnation where he's not a complete twit. Mark me, some guy, some day, somewhere is going to get the rights to The Inspector Gadget franchise and is going to have the same idea I did and is going to make it work! …Sadly, I got a bad feeling that tomorrow's not going to be that day…and neither is next Tuesday.

Heckfan: I try when I can, or is that "can when I try"? Anywayses, thanks just the same. Sorry for the wait and all that, college, studying hard, building a future for myself and whatever chick the law of averages screws over in order for her to be with me, I hope you understand.

And now, back to A. Fox for the final word(s) of the day. I hope it's gargantuan (it sounds super cool and no one uses it anymore).

And now I hope you dear readers shall leave more reviews don't be shy we would love to hear your output. And for those of you who are waiting for the next chapter don't worry We'll be starting work soon...whether work on it begins in this month or the next is the question


	3. Arc 1 Part 3:Introducing Dash

Metroville, California 11:43am

It hadn't been an easy week for Cornelius.

Beginning with explaining to his parents as to why there was a dead body in the greenhouse when they returned around one, and then relating she same story to the police that showed. They took him down to the station, and tried the whole good cop, bad cop deal. It didn't phase him, he had nothing to hide, did nothing wrong, and wasn't going to act like he did just because they yelled at him and gave him a soda right after. Once his lawyer showed up and did some shouting on his behalf, he was allowed to go back home and have a squad car wait in front of his house.

When he got home, literally as he walked through the door, Cornelius received a phone call from Inspector Gadget. He told the inspector everything that transpired, as well as the name and address of the woman the assassin gave him the letter for, and that he was going to wait for the Inspector to contact him before doing anything too drastic. Gadget was afraid that whoever was behind this might have more assassins waiting in the wings, if not within the police dept. itself, and that Cornelius may not be safe within his own home. Cornelius informed the inspector that due to security purposes, he'd made it impossible to move programs off of his personal computer, via internet or otherwise, and he'd also built certain security protocols into his computer so that his house was the only place that it would operate. Essentially, if he didn't build the program there, he'd need to start again, not with just the translation program but the programs he'd made to make the translation program, it'd take months.

Gadget was adamant that Cornelius's safety was first, and that until an effective means of protection was established, he needed to get packed and ready to leave, his parents as well. Cornelius queried if they should get his girlfriend Franny into hiding as well, to which the Inspector asked if there was a lot of media attention concerning him and her, to which the answer was no. The young inventor asked if the inspector was personally coming to pick them up, unfortunately Gadget was bust tracking down further leads and was certain that he himself was being followed. But he reassured the young genius that the one to pick him up would be someone he trusted completely, his niece.

And so began two straight days of waiting around his house in fear, not knowing whether or not when the police out front went of shift, if their replacements were just gun toting maniacs in badges or not. He also had a swell time canceling his appointments and explaining to his distressed board members that getting targeted for assassination meant he was due some down time from his projects in order to run and hide, and that the reason why he hired them was because they were supposed to be able to run a business, regardless of him being there or not. It did give him time to think however, and thankfully that's one of the things he did best.

On the third day, Gadget's niece arrived, using a tranquilizer gun to take down the officers outside of the Robinson home. Cornelius had a bad feeling about them, they kept shooting dark looks towards the house, and he just got a bad vibe from them. His feelings were justified when she informed them that she'd found two stripped in the grass along the road that lead to the house, one of them still clutched a badge.

With her was Candy, his assassin's girlfriend. She was a pretty red head, not too bright, but was very kind and caring. It was a jarring experience for Cornelius, watching her get brought to tears as she read the note. She told him that she didn't blame him for what happened, but that didn't dissuade the partial guilt he felt over the incident, in fact it cemented it more than anything.

He felt numb as they all piled into Penny's car, driving away from their home which was no longer safe. Budd held Lucille firmly, wearing his clothes correctly for once, as Lucille began to cry. Penny just kept staring on down the road, her sharp eyes darting occasionally to the rearview mirror or the tall grass that lined the paved but mostly abandoned road. Candy just kept dispassionately stroking the fur of what he assumed to be Penny's beagle. They didn't stop, no one really talked, no one really wanted to, they just kept driving and driving until it turned dark and they finally stopped at a motel.

That night, Cornelius spoke with Penny. He told her that he was now fully invested in helping Gadget end this investigation, and to do that he needed to be at his house. Penny strongly urged against him leaving. Until he informed her that he wasn't going back to his house, he was going to procure a means to make it safe once more. He left in the middle of the night, leaving Penny a letter to give to his parents. He didn't want to consult them since he knew full well that they would be fully against letting their one and only thirteen year old son out and alone into a world that filled with killers looking for his head. Penny told him to be safe and dropped him off at the train station, giving him a contact number for her uncle. He ordered a ticket for the next departure and got off two stations before his stop, and hit the first motel he came across.

Life alone wasn't all that difficult. True, he had to lay low, but even then he didn't have to worry so much about money since being Cornelius Robinson at that point in his life not only meant that he was smart, but wealthy too. The only slip up he made was that once he ran out of cash, he paid for some things via credit card. Fortunately he was able to catch that mistake, but not before another close call. Three gunman broke into his motel room and tore the place apart. Fortunately he wasn't there to be found, he was pulling away from the place in a cab, and happened to notice a black sedan park in front of his former room. From then on, he just made a huge withdrawal from the bank and lived off of that, cash transactions were impossible to follow, if a little dated. Unfortunately, he still couldn't shake the feeling that he was being followed.

Cornelius's plan was simple, he'd get a bodyguard. Penny warned him that the word might be out about him that there was a price on his head, and hiring any conventional body guard service might just mean that he was simply hiring his own executioner. He needed to hire someone who wasn't driven by mere cash alone, but was fortified by a solid sense of right and wrong that most people lack. Further than that, he needed someone who was more or less off the grid, and could handle any situation, was someone that the mysterious enemy couldn't get to. Unfortunately, people in the community he was hoping to seek help from were rather illusive. However, if his suspicions were right, then by the end of the day, he'd have a superpowered bodyguard of his very own.

"You here," a gruff voice said from the front seat.

The speaker, Cornelius's cab driver, shook the boy from his thoughts. Cornelius paid the man with a tip twice the cost of the fare before being deposited into the chaotic parking lot of the Metroville baseball stadium, home of the Metroville Meteors. Cornelius gritted his teeth as the sun hit his eyes after exiting the shade of the taxi which was now driving off with a more than pleased driver. The place was full of ballpark fanatics, even though it wasn't a game day, the season was over in fact. Today was a practice day, as well as fan's meet and greet, so the place was packed. Fan's rushed over to stands, creating small mobs in order to get their favorite player's John Hancock. Cornelius headed straight towards the largest of the crowds, knowing intuitively that who he wanted to talk to was there.

Cornelius wormed his way through the chattering fans to finally make it to a table, at which sat a player with slicked back blond hair, deep blue eyes, and of course a perfect, pretty boy smile. This guy was much younger than any of the other people wearing a Meteors uniform, and while he looked like some punk kid, this was the Metroville Meteors no. twenty-six. Dashal "The Dash" Robert Parr, age seventeen, the youngest to ever play in the Majors, as well the fastest pitcher and hitter in the world, and if Cornelius's suspicions were correct, world renown superhero.

The problem was of course was getting his attention while his adoring fans were screaming the heads off for him.

"Excuse me, Mr. Parr?" Cornelius said as loudly as he could without yelling.

"Mr. Parr's my father's name," Dash said, as he signed a Meteor's cap and placed it atop the head of the toddler who handed it to him. "You take care now," he said to the kid, patting him on the head and throwing him a Mikey Meteor plushie, the team's mascot.

"Thank you!" the kid squealed with delight, as his mom ushered him away from the table.

"I need to talk to you," Cornelius said earnestly, trying to win attention over the next batch of sports enthusiasts.

"Look kid, if you want an autograph, you'll have to wait in line just like everyone else," Dash said dispassionately, jotting down his name on a ten year old's mitt.

Due to the urgency of the situation which Cornelius was in, he felt it best not to point out that there was only a four year age difference between the two, and that out of the two of them, Cornelius made more money in a month than the player made working a full year. "But I need to talk to you about The Dash."

"Hey kid, he said no cutting!" said an annoyed zit faced fan from behind him, "Just get to the back and wait your turn!"

"What about me?" Dash said nonchalantly.

"No, about the hero," Cornelius said, trying to be discreet and failing as he be came more conspicuous as more and more attention was called to him and the fact that he was skipping.

"Get to the back!" someone from the crowd shouted.

"No cutting!" shouted another.

"It's great that I'm your hero," Dash said pointedly to Cornelius, "but could you please wait your turn?"

"No, not my hero!" Cornelius said, trying hard to get his voice through the growing ruckus of the crowd.

"GET IN LINE!" Someone shouted.

"THE hero, Dash, from the Incredibles." Cornelius tried to get out, his voice barely audiable.

"Okay, yeah, I know I'm incredible," Dash said, misinterpreting the words, "Please just wait in line?"

"I'VE BEEN HERE AN HOUR!" shouted one from the agitated crowd.

"ME TOO!" another agreed.

"No," Cornelius said, his voice not getting out, "You're the-"

"HEEEEEYYYYY!" Dash shouted, getting up and throwing up his hands, quieting the crowd. Once everyone settled, he rounded on Cornelius, "Listen, I'm flattered and all, but you need to go back and wait your turn." Dash then turned to the crowd at large, "Listen, I gotta go." The statement was met with a large wave of disapproval and disappointed moans. "Hey it's just to the bathroom, I'll be right back."

Cornelius thought about possibly ducking under the velvet line and running after Dash as the sports star walked away. But while the crowd would only use their voices against him for wrong doing, he had a feeling that the security staff at the function would be somewhat less forgiving. So, sad and dejected, Cornelius tromped to the back of the line. It was hard for him to think of any other way to do this. He suspected that chances were high that his contacts at work were being monitored, so going through the proper channels to set up a meeting with Dash could get him caught. Then of course there was always the possibility that his suspicions were way off. The Dash didn't even bat a lash when Cornelius accused him of being-

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

The world around Cornelius became a blur, as he flew the air. His arm felt like it was being ripped out of his socket as he was being pulled along at a blinding pace by some unseen force. The wind was knocked out him as he came to an abrupt and painful stop.

"Who sent you?" came a voice from in front of him.

It took Cornelius a moment to get his bearing and realize where he was, it was nothing short of a miracle that his glasses hadn't fallen off, in the sudden rush. He looked around to see that he was in the currently empty loading area for the baseball stadium. He was pinned to the side of a dumpster, staring face to face with a red eyed, angry Dash Parr, his hands being the reason why his shoulders were pinned to the dumpster. Unfortunately Cornelius didn't really register the question he was asked.

"…What?" the inventor replied.

POP!

Pain shot through the side of Cornelius's head, his lip suddenly busted and his head turned to the side. He felt like he just got socked in the jaw, although he didn't even see, or for that matter feel, Dash's hands move.

"Don't screw with me!" Dash said coldly, murder in his words, "I could drag you along the highway at a couple hundred miles an hour, and leave your body so far away and in so many parts, it'll be years before they identify you through your dental records. So I'll ask again. Who. Sent. You?"

"NOBODY! NO ONE! I came on my own!" Cornelius cried out, self preservation on his mind, "Listen, my name is Cornelius Robinson and I need your help."

"Bullcrap! How long have you been watching me?"

"I've been following you as a hobby of mine. Appearances of The Dash match your touring routes in other cities, although you've had appearances all over The US and even across the globe to throw anyone off the scent. There was also an instance where you and "The Dash" appeared at the same charity function, but I suspect that was probably your team-mate, Attack Jack, he's the shape-shifter right?"

Dash was silent processing all this, finally answering with, "…How did you find me?"

"A friend of mine's a huge baseball nut. A few months back, he managed to drag me to game you played at Sacramento . You were up to pitch, but you were missing for twenty minutes. Later, I read the news, and it turns out that The Incredibles were in battle during the game and-"

"WHAT THE!" someone called out. Cornelius and Dash looked up to see some a guy in a cheesy Men In Black get up, with a silenced gun drawn and pointed at Cornelius's head.

While Cornelius closed his eyes, knowing the end had come, Dash saw everything. Dash perceived thing much faster than you or I could imagine, to him everything moved in slow motion, it took him years to learn to talk slow enough for anyone to understand anything he said, and school was a nightmare for him. Seeing the world in such a manner applied to the situation that day in the alley. The man was at least twenty or so feet away, but Dash was able to make out the slow, subtle rippling of the muscles in the man's finger as it squeezed the trigger of the gun.

Dash let go of Cornelius and started moving faster than could be seen by the human eye. He started moving towards the gunman, hoping to take him out before the hammer of the gun could strike the primer. He gritted his teeth as he noticed the slight glow from the barrel of the gun, he'd have to circle around and come back. They didn't call it break neck speeds for nothing, if he tried to grab the bullet while moving in the opposite direction, he was liable to snap his arm in half, and he was going too quickly to move the man's arm without possibly dislocating it.

He rushed out of the stadium area and hit the road, ducking under, going over, and zipping around cars and semis. It was exceedingly difficult, if his brain and eyes didn't keep up with the rest of his body, he would've ended up as a nice meaty splatter on the side of a brick wall years ago. It was hard for him to see too well without his mask on, it hurt like hell as he felt the wind hammering on his eyes, and if his tear ducts weren't fast enough to replace the tears he was rapidly losing as he ran, he'd be running blind. He finally managed to hit the freeway after an insanely long and grueling millisecond of running, it allowed the wide berth he needed to make a turn without losing too much speed. There was no big rush, he wasn't in that much of a hurry.

He slowed down as he returned to the stadium loading area. When he came back, Cornelius and the hatless Blues Brothers reject were exactly where he'd left them. The bullet had come close to closing half the distance between Cornelius. Dash sped forward and clasped his hand around the bullet, he gritted his teeth as he felt the bee sting that came from holding the hot lead, it took a lot of heat to really hurt him when he moved at these speeds. With Cornelius no longer in danger, Dash was able to finally slow down and move in the opposite direction, not an easy thing to do when moving over several hundred miles an hour, fortunately for him, his sneakers were custom made for him by Edna Mode, giving him optimal traction over time, any other shoe would've worn away long before then, leaving the bottoms of his feet cut and bloody.

Moving back towards the would-be murderer, Dash extended his arm, setting the slob up for a super sonic clothesline. As he neared the stoolie, Dash aimed his arm lower, since he was liable to snap the guy's neck should he clothesline by the throat. Once all that was determined was…

WHOP!

Cornelius didn't know what happened, one second Dash was holding him against the dumpster with an assassin leveling a gun at his head, the next Dash was standing over the killer, who was now on the ground coughing up blood.

"Hey," Dash said, looking over his shoulder, back at Cornelius with a smile, "Want a souvenir?" The baseball star then held up a bullet in between his thumb and forefinger.

Cornelius for his part was still somewhat jarred, but he started to deduce what most likely happened. And then he started to think what was most likely to come of it. "GET HIS COLLAR OFF!" the young inventor shouted out.

"What?" Dash replied, the statement catching him off guard. Dash looked down to find the gunman on the ground, convulsing violently and foaming at the mouth. "What the hell's wrong with him?" Dash asked as Cornelius rushed past him to kneel down next to the dying man.

"Damn it! It's too late," Cornelius said, removing the man's tie and the upper part of his shirt, revealing a solid metal collar.

"What's happening to him?" Dash asked, not understanding what was going on.

"You see this?" Cornelius said, pointing a the metal band, "This thing kills them when they fail."

"When they fail what?"

"To kill me."

"Jesus."

"I need to disappear Cornelius said, is there any place you can hide me?"

"Wait, we can't just leave him here," Dash said disbelievingly.

"For someone who was threatening to roadhaul me a few seconds ago, you're acting awfully squeamish."

"Yeah, but that's because I was bullshitting."

"Look, they're hunting me in groups now, so it's just a matter of time before his buddies show up. You can call the cops if you have to, but right now I need to disappear. Is there a place you can hide me right now?"

Dash didn't know what to say. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen death before, back when his family had gone toe-to-toe with Syndrome, and even a couple of times since then, there'd been accidents, unavoidable deaths. But that was actual combat, and this was different, it all went by so fast, he never got to stare at a body before. The gunman had stopped twitching at this point, he was stone dead. The real creepy thing was that his eyes didn't even look right anymore, they were cold, vacant, like a doll's, like he wasn't even alive to begin with.

"HEY!" Cornelius shouted, shaking Dash from his inspection, "We need to move, can you hide me?"

"Uh…" Dash took another look at the downed man, "Uh, yeah, this way."

Later

"I still can't believe this," Cornelius said.

"Hey, you said you wanted a hiding place, they'd never find you in there. Here you go."

The two were back at Dash's signing table, the "here you go" being intended for the twelve year old in braces, ecstatic about his newly signed Meteors poster. Cornelius was dressed in the bulky foam rubber suit of the team's well loved mascot, Mikey The Meteor, which wasn't as well loved as he'd been lead to believe. While the players were revered and garnered much respect, Mikey got about as much respect as a wet mop, seeing as Cornelius just spent the last hour or so, wandering the crowd, getting kicked in the legs by little brats left and right. Now while the suit did guarantee that the gun man weren't going to find him for quite some time, he was certain that his shins would definitely be black and blue by the time he got out of the thing.

"So how many are there?" Dash asked.

"I counted nine, two went inside looking for me, and I'm fairly certain that the helicopter overhead is there to make sure that I don't just walk out of here. Two by the parking lot are looking for people wearing hats."

"Helicopter?" Dash looked up to see a helicopter sitting perfectly still in mid air, he saw it a little earlier, but he'd just written it off as a regular news chopper, but upon further inspection he saw that it was black and bore no number or lettering to signify who it represented.

"Dash?" came a woman's voice. The baseball star looked down to see at his table, a rather nice looking young woman wearing a Meteors t-shirt. "Oh my god, I'm your biggest fan!"

"I'm sure you are," Dash said, cracking a million dollar smile. Her team devotion was far from being the biggest thing about her, Dash was fairly certain she fell forward every time she bent over to pick up a pencil, he'd never seen the letters "M" and "S" look so good, bloated but happy. "Say," Dash said, "once I get done here, how's about you an' me go somewhere an' talk, I could show you how to pitch like a pro."

"Sorry, I'm meeting my boyfriend after this, he wanted me to get you to sign his hat."

Dash took the hat, and while his lips said "Sure thing," his mind was screaming, "Lucky bastard!"

"Just as well," Cornelius whispered, "You're playing bodyguard for me, remember?"

"I never technically said yes to that yet, and you can consider yourself dead if you think that'll keep yours truly from getting in between a pair of legs. So, how long are these gun toting stereotypes gonna keep hanging around here?"

"Not too long I suppose. They definitely know I haven't given them the slip if they're still hanging around for this long, but they're eventually going to have to ease up and pull some guys away to draw me out of hiding."

"Well what's this?" Dash said. He spotted the two hitmen that were searching the stadium like Cornelius said, walking quickly out of the stadium towards the crowd. Dash wasn't the only one to notice this, several of the security staff noticed too, and Dash cracked a smile as they moved to intercept, "This oughta be good."

Cornelius at the time had noticed something else, all of a sudden, all the hitmen he'd spotted (they weren't too hard to find since they were all wearing suits to a sporting event), had started to move towards the parking lot. Towards to black vans that had just pulled up to be exact, and from one of these vans, a similarly dressed man exited, holding a briefcase. The man calmly waded into the crowd, walking slowly, not moving fastnone of the hitmen made any sudden movements as a matter of fact. Once he was in the center of the crowd, or close enough, he dropped the suitcase next to a bench, and started to move back to the vans.

"Yeah guys, try to talk your way out of it," Dash said, grinning sardonically as the two hitmen argued with the security guards who refused to simply let 'em leave.

Cornelius also took notice of the two, along with quite a few other things. He saw that that one was becoming increasingly, and unnecessarily agitated with the security staff, whilst the other one had removed his sun glasses and was looking intently from the suit case to the two black vans. He also noticed that the helicopter was suddenly nowhere to be seen, and that the two vans pulled off like a bats outta hell after picking up the gunman, excluding the two who were held up at security, sweating like sinners in church. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was about to happen, although the fact that he was didn't hurt.

"It's a bomb," Cornelius said to Dash in a low voice.

"What?" the speedster replied, confused.

"Towards the center of the crowd, by a bench."

"With this many innocent people around?"

"Absolutely."

"How long do you think we have?"

"Not long."

"Well if I get it right now, I can kiss my family's safety goodbye."

"Let me deal with that." Cornelius started running towards the two gunmen just as they started to run from the security team towards the stadium. The young inventor was much in the way of physical fitness, and the foam rubber suit hindered his running, but he managed to blindside and tackle one of his attempted killers to the ground. Amid the scuffle between him and the killer, Cornelius managed to get a hold of the assassin's gun. The killer threw Cornelius off of him and started back towards the stadium again, with security just barely two steps behind him. It was difficult to handle the weapon in the bulky and clumsy gloves of the mascot uniform, but he managed to wrench the silencer off. He took aim at the ground and fired.

PAP! PAP! PAP!

The gunfire had a remarkable affect on the crowd. Instantly there were screams, people ducking and running left and right, it was mass confusion and hysteria, which is precisely what Dash needed.

Dash ducked under the table incase anyone still had their eyes on him, which he highly doubted, but a few extra precautions never hurt. Once he was out of sight, he jetted forward. It was easy for him to cut through the crowd since to him the people moved at less than a snail's pace. It was even easier for him to find the bomb that Cornelius had told him about, not that it was really cleverly hidden. Seriously, a black briefcase, how much more cliché were these guys going to get? As irksome as this hit squad's predictability was, he still had the bomb to focus on. It'd been quite some since he'd had to diffuse a bomb, but he was certain that he'd have enough time to get back in the swing of it.

As it turned out however, Dash didn't know jack about how much time he had. Because when he opened the suitcase, the red numbers which signified the detonation timer all read as zero. Suffice to say, he didn't have time to diffuse the bomb at all. He closed the suitcase and started running. He needed to get the bomb away from any place populated, he jetted through the town, trying to think of where. The ocean was to far away, and even he wasn't fast enough to make it there on time. He was finally able to make it on the highway and was able to really pick up the pace then. He figured that if he was able to get it to some of the unpopulated land developments that lay between the suburbs and the city, he might be able to let the bomb go there and outrun the blast.

Suddenly he felt his hand start to sweat, more so than usual. He looked down at the suitcase to see the black pleather start to bubble and sizzle, and the metal latches start to glow. "SHIT!" Dash shouted out of frustration so fast that it barely registered as an action and was audible only to him. The bomb was exploding, there was no way he'd be able to make it anywhere unpopulated, he needed to get rid of the bomb now. But there wasn't anywhere he could take the damned thing without killing a dozen people upon it exploding, there was no way to win.

Then he saw it. Metro Tower , the tallest building in the city, the tallest building for miles, and upon seeing it, and idea popped into his head. It could if he was fast enough, and he needed to outrun the explosion that he carried in his hand, there were other factors as well. So all things considered, it was still a pretty big if, but it was better than nothing.

He got low to the ground and really put on the speed, his leg muscles starting to burn from the effort. In time less than milliseconds, he was at the base of the tower, this was what he was worried about. He'd run up the sides of buildings lots of times before, no problem. But he never done it at these speeds before. He didn't know if he'd be able to make such a drastic and sharp turn in the momentum he was working with. If he didn't get his footing just right, he was likely to just simply snap his own leg like a twig, and then blow up due to the explosion on a handle he was holding.

Dash rushed at the building, he then closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as he placed one foot on the side of the building. The pain was unbearable, he felt pain scream resoundingly throughout his leg as the force from his running began to press down on it, beginning to bend the bones, less than a moment away from making them snap. Regardless, Dash pressed on, bringing his other leg onto the side of the building, pushing downwards with it to get traction. It was slow, slow from the perspective of Dash that is, but he managed to run up the side of the building with relatively none of his speed lost in the change of direction. It was all up in the air now, literally. He rushed upwards along the building, but he quickly found himself to be out of road to run on. However, his forward momentum continued to propel him, working to skyrocket him upwards. This was it. With all the strength he had, he grabbed the suitcase handle with both hands and flung it upwards. The explosion had begun to escape the boundaries of the suitcase, the edges of the blast slowly expanding, the bright light of it a blinding sphere.

BOOM!

The bomb unleashed it full force with a deafening outburst of energy. At twenty thousand feet in the air, it was a dazzling streak of red, orange, and yellow fury, the blast going out in a line, still moving upwards. Below it, gravity had begun to reclaim Dash and was pulling him downwards, as he now fought an all new kind of battle. Dash, moving as fast he did, doing the things that he did, typically used up way more oxygen than the average human in order to give his body the air it needed in order for him to move so fast. Now this typically isn't a problem, since he's usually operating on the ground, where the air is plentiful. Not so with his current predicament. As high up as he was, a normal person would have trouble breathing, but with the way Dash's body worked, being up so high where the air was so thin, it was like being buried alive. His lungs burned and screamed for air, although there was not enough for how much he was inhaling. Dash knew what was happening, and tried to slow his breathing, but after what he just did, it was hard for his body to cooperate with his commands. Everything he saw suddenly began to fog over with a thick black haze, and although he fought hard against it, he passed out.

Suddenly Dash's eyes shot open. He was disoriented at first, he awoke to find the rooftops of Metroville rising up to meet him all too quickly. At first he thought it was one of those nightmares people have about falling, but the ice cold wind that stung his face told him different. He shot both his hands forward and began to spin them in circles. It was speedsters 101 really, if you ever get caught falling, the first thing you do is create a strong air current to cushion your fall. True to form, his arms managed to create two wind tunnels which pushed against the ground and slowed his descent to the city streets. Unfortunately, one just can't create a couple of tornadoes in the middle of a crowded street and expect people not to take notice. So he pulled his shirt up and lowered his head, but the time he'd set the toe of his sneaker on the ground, he was long gone before anyone even had the idea to try and reach for their camera phones.

Back at the stadium, the firing of the gun had created a fair amount of pandemonium. The chaos was only increased when Cornelius saw an explosion in the sky just seconds later. In the wake of the hysteria, Cornelius went out of his way to make sure that his tracks were covered. He headed into the stadium unopposed and made his way into the security office. When he got there, he found that the lock had already been broken. He sat at the camera console and found a transmitter of sorts plugged into the computer. It was uploading some program, or allowing someone to get past the security encryptions the computer had in order to get at whatever information was there in. He unplugged the device from the computer and was about to pocket it for further study when he heard a sinister pop. That pop along with some sizzling and smoke coming from the plastic stick informed him that it was now useless to him, his opponent (opponents?) was very thorough indeed.

Regardless, Cornelius pocketed the device and kept moving forward, turning his attention to the computer. I was easy for him to hack into the server, and gain access to all security footage of the stadium. It was all there to him, Dash's interrogation of him in the back, the gunman who tried to shoot him, the footage of even more hitmen appearing to get rid of the body, and even Dash ducking under his signing table and disappearing in a blur. With just a few key strokes, Cornelius made it so that such information would never see the light of day, deleting the lot, but only after copying those files to a flash drive he had on his person. Once that loose end was taken care of, he made his way to the locker room where Dash had gotten him the Mikey The Meteor costume in the first place. Finding no one there Cornelius stripped himself of his foam rubber sweat box and waited.

His patience paid off as several minutes later, Dash burst into the locker room, and he was quite out of breath with his shirt pulled up around his nose. Pulling his shirt down, Dash addressed the young inventor. "So…those…whoa, gimme a second…Okay. So those Pulp Fiction guys…they were really going to kill…all those people…just to get to you?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay…I'm in."

And now for Fire Back (FYI reviews), where the readers say what they think.

Here's what I say.

To The Heck: Thank you.

To Italian schizoid boy: Is this chapter as engrossing then?

And here's what Grimm Gun says.

To The Heck: Well the devil is in the details, besides I hate it when questions pop up like "Why didn't such and such just do this?" and I don't have a good answer, not every emperor likes to find out he's naked.

To Italian Schizoid Boy: Well today's you lucky day isn't it? Unless you got cancer, in which case this all seems rather trivial, and best of luck regardless.

Tune in next week for the fourth part of our thrilling adventure series, where we get to see something strange.


	4. Arc1 Part 4:This is Halloween

Halloween Town, Night

A group of notorious thugs and cutthroats stalked through the haunted wood towards a strange and twisted little town that had been set partially a blaze. At the center of this ragtag band of dirty and fetid miscreants was a man that was rather finely dressed and clean shaven oddly enough. He was dressed in an early 1800's British naval captain's uniform, although the blue coat had been dyed red, and instead of an officer's shirt he wore a frilled silk shirt often considered as high class by the peasantry and casual wear by the nobility. Getting beyond that, he was a slim man, from head to toe, and his waist was doubly so, his hair was black, curly, and long, so much so to the extent that it reached down to his shoulders. He had a mustache which stretched out to opposite ends of his face, ending in points sharper than most daggers. His eyes were as blue as the sky on a cloudless summer day, although many have claimed that they turn blood red on occasion, the occasion always being right before he killed a man. And the most striking and obvious feature about this man was the fact that if anyone were to stare at his left hand they'd notice that it was missing and in it's place was a shiny, sharp, gleaming silver hook. This man was the notorious pirate Captain James Hook, scourge of the seventy seas of Neverland.

The reason creepy looking village he was walking towards had some buildings on fire was due to his orders. He was feared, hated, older children told younger children he'd come to get them if they weren't good…enough. He was all of the despicable and evil things, but more so than anything else, he was morbidly depressed.

"Oh do cheer up Captain," said a portly, short, balding, and barefooted little man walking in step to Hook, he was the first mate, Smee.

"Cheer up?" Hook repeated, the points of his mustache stabbing low, "How can I cheer up when that damnable brat is still flitting about Neverland, mocking me, and mocking me, and mocking me, AND MOC-"

"Now, now Captain," Smee said reassuringly, seeing how things could've turned badly with the captain's legendary temper sent out of control, "Look, well go into this town, kill everyone there, and then you'll feel all better, you'll see."

"Hmph…I suppose."

Hook did admit, this little excursion was quite different from the normal routine of killing mermaids, Indians, fairies, Lost Boys, and, well, anything breathing that wasn't a pirate, and even that group's protection only came from their perfect servitude and the toss of a coin. Upon arriving in this land through some means unknown, they found the inhabitants and thought them to be some manner of demons, and this place a hell of sorts, as ferocious as everything looked. However, with keeping their distance and observing, Hook and his men soon found that the looks were just about all that was ferocious about this place and it's people, observation showing that the people of this strange land were very likely to be kind, friendly, helpful, and outgoing. So naturally, Hook gave the order for his men to attack mercilessly, which they'd done rather well so far. The people of this place were practically clowns, frightening clowns, but certainly not warriors.

Now, with this in mind, you can imagine Captain Hook's confusion as his own men came running is several droves from the burning town, a town which they themselves were sacking, fear present in their eyes.

The captain of course tried interrogate his men as to the nature of why they were retreating when victory was theirs, or if in fact that was the case. He did this all in a polite manner of course.

"WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU GUTLESS, TICK INFESTED IDGITS DOING!" Captain Hook shouted, ready to gut the man who stopped to give the answer.

Unfortunately, his question was not answered in the manner he'd hoped, seeing as how none of his retreating men stopped to answer him, but merely shouted absurd things such as, "RUN!" and "HE'S THE DEVIL!" So Hook had to resort to "hooking" the collar of one of his men's shirt collar as he attempted to run by. The shirt belonging to the man wearing the clothing article, Perkiss, a gaunt, aging, and bearded man of no real consequence.

"Mister Perkiss," Hook addressed the man, no longer shouting as he had his errant employee well within earshot, "Would you be so kind as to inform why you and the other men are running away and not obeying my orders to sack the town?"

Perkiss was perfectly bewildered to find that he was no longer returning to a place he once knew, but in fact impeded by his captain, his own fear rising considerably, seeing past the false face of serenity the notorious Hook faked, and into the malice the man truly held behind those deep blue circles lined with red veins. It was hard for Perkiss to form the words, his thoughts constantly at war with the fear it held for what was behind and the fear for what's in front. It was like being trapped in a burning building while outside there was acid rain. Nevertheless, Perkiss found the words he was looking for, even if they were fumbled slightly in their delivery. "Is-is a muh-monster s-sir."

"What monster, Perkiss?" Hook growled, raising the silvery point of his faux hand to come ever so closely to the side of Perkiss' eye.

"A, uh, a skinny one sir. He was awfully skinny, and tall too. Taller 'en you 'r I, sir. He's stronger 'en you'd think, him being nothing but bones, dressed all in black."

Annoyed at the cowardice of his man, Hook was about to gut the yellow sod, and order the execution of his chicken-eyed friends, when he heard it. The noise was small, barely inaudible when set against the sounds of the woods and the village beyond, but it was there. The slightest tapping, like the first few drops of rain hitting the window before a storm. Hook looked up towards the town to see a figure walking towards them, impossible to make out, until moonlight streaming through the trees fell upon it.

For all intents and purposes, it was a skeleton in a pinstripe tuxedo, with an overly large, black, bat shaped bowtie. Hook prided himself in being the tallest in all of Neverland, yet this walking relic easily stood a about half a head taller than the captain.

Upon seeing that it'd gained the pirates attention, a feat which should've been impossible due to it's apparent lack of eyes, the skeleton stopped and cleared it's throat, another thing which it lacked. "GREATINGS AND SALUTATIONS!" the skeleton cried, sounding as if it were commemorating it's meeting with a group of armed killers. "Um, am I correct to assume that this is all your doing?" the skeleton asked, pointing a bony finger towards Hook while his other hand waved to indicate the fire in town.

"…You are," the captain answered, so intrigued that he released the man whom he had intended to eviscerate, allowing Perkiss to continue his act of fleeing.

"Ah, yes, well, hmm, how should I put this?" the skeleton began, the bone matter of it's skull miraculously shifting into that of a look of deep thought, contemplating it's words"...While your men's techniques are certainly frightening, no doubt about that, they're a bit too…lethal for our Halloween purposes. So might I ask that you and your friends discontinue such ghastly activities? We'd all be very grateful."

Hook and his men stared incredulously, no one talked to the captain in any manner other than that of subservience and fear, if they wanted to continue to breathe for very long that is. Provided of course that they were incapable of flight, this foolish creature's feet were, without a doubt, rooted firmly to the ground. Now, as outrageous as the skeleton's actions were, Hook did not immediately fly off the handle, after all, the captain was a stranger in a strange land, he shouldn't expect everyone everywhere to know of his insidious deeds, not at first anyway. So, with all the patience of a kindly schoolmaster, Captain Hook asked the skeleton, "Who are you, to demand such a concession?"

"Ah! Where are my manners?" The skeleton said, swatting imaginary dust, soot, and dirt off his person to make itself more presentable, "I am Jack Skellington, The PUMPKIN KING! At your service," Jack finished, with a courteous bow.

"Ah, I see," Hook said before resorting to silence. He took a moment to mull over this information, before making an announcement. "MEN!" Hook shouted, addressing his entourage of thugs, "KILL JACK SKELLINGTON!"

Hook's men, grinning viciously at the prospect of bloodshed, rushed forward, excluding Smee of course (the first mate proving to be more foe than friend when it came to combat on more than one occasion). Hook's men weren't too clear on how they were to shed blood from a skeleton, but they were more than glad to give it a shot.

"Hmm," Jack sighed disappointedly at the seven oncoming, sword wielding pirates, "That did not go as well as I had hoped."

It'd been quite some time since Jack had to resort to fisticuffs, and while the Pumpkin King was not a warrior by trade, one thing he did know how to do on the spot was perform, and a fight was just another stage and opportunity on which to do so.

The skeleton's keen eye sight allowed him to see the first two serious threats; the obvious one being the first and closest pirate running with sword raised and murder in his eyes, the second one was the one right behind him, moving towards the left, staying low and trying to stay unnoticed, that's the one Jack had to worry about. The other five would probably hang back and try to encircle him before truly jumping into the fray.

Jack shot his right foot out high and to the left, then brought it around back to the right, cutting it across the first man's face like a whip. The blow knocked the man off his feet, sending him spinning and down but not out. The force Jack put into the action forced the skeleton to bare his back to the pirate on the left, exactly as planned.

Seeing the open opportunity, the pirate stepped over the wide eyed body of his buddy on the ground, and rushed forward to cleave the skeleton in two. Knowing this, planning for this, Jack brought his foot down, swinging it backwards like a pendulum, and turned his hips to put force into it to connect with the pirate's knee in a spectacular backwards horse kick. The move shattered the man's kneecap, and removed him from the fight, his screaming working as a powerful agent of fear amongst the remaining pirates.

The remaining five pirates, seeing that one of their mates was down, while the other was out moved to circle and take out the skeleton. Jack however was not going to allow himself to be handled and slaughtered like some crazed boar. Looking at the most probably the most ornery of the five, since it was impossible to openly discern which was the dumbest. Staring at the brute in the bandana, Jack waved for him to come forward, sticking out a blackened worm eaten tongue at the man as he did so.

The pirate ran forward, sword first, with the express intent to skewer the skeleton. Not the most brilliant or outstanding of techniques, but effective against most untrained inhabitants of Neverland, there was one hitch with the attack however, Jack was far from untrained. As the pirate got near, Jack focused not on the blade, but on the holding the blade. Being far faster and his arm being way longer than the blade, Jack reached out and grabbed the wrist of the pirate's sword hand at the wrist. The skeleton did not stop the pirate's movement with this action, nor was his intent, in fact he increased it. Jack pulled the blade in the same direction it was headed, just at a different angle; down, and by stepping to the side, Jack managed to not get stabbed. The sword dug itself into the dirt, but Jack didn't stop there, crouching and getting into a wide stance, directing the man's momentum perfectly. He continuing to direct the front of the man downwards, Jack used his free hand to grab the length of rope the pirate used as and improvised belt, and pulled up on it. With everything the way it was, all it took was Jack to stick out his leg, taking away what little balance the man had left, allowing the skeleton to flip him forwards onto his back.

"Got ya!" came a voice from behind Jack, it was one of the pirates he'd just knocked down, the one who had been kicked in the jaw. Before Jack had time to react, the man held him fast in a firm bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides. The man was far muscular than Jack, fighting against the hold would do no good, so Jack simply slipped around it. Almost as soon as the pirate grabbed him, the pirate lost him, Jack had crouched low to escape the man's grasp, though not completely, as the man still clutched at the front of Jack's coat. Jack then reached up and grabbed the man's arms, his bony hands holding firm under the man's armpits. Jack then pulled forward and stepped slightly backwards, using his back as leverage to flip the pirate over him. The move forced the pirate to let go of Jack, and sent him sprawling onto his comrade who'd just shared a similar experience.

Jack knew that the other four of Hook's men had gotten fed up with the embarrassment they had been enduring thus far, he could tell by the crunching of the sticks and leaves as the pirates rushed in. The skeleton ran forward, stepping over the two fallen and entangled pirates as he did so. As he ran, Jack made sure not to run too far or fast, there was a lot that could go wrong with what he was about to do, and if he got too far away from them while doing it, he'd fail outright. Heading towards a tree, Jack took a running leap at it, and used it as a base for him to leap in the opposite direction, performing a midair split as he did so. Fortunately, things were all going according to plan, as the first of the four remaining pirates was exactly where Jack needed him to be. The pirate skidded to a halt due to the pain of the skeleton's foot planting itself firmly in his chest. Before succumbing to gravity, Jack brought his other foot forward and performed a back flip kick to the man's teeth, knocking the pirate off his feet as Jack landed on his.

Jack surveyed his enemies, the two he'd flipped onto one another were finally returning to their feet, the one he just used as a springboard was on his back, clutching his bleeding mouth, down but still a threat, and of course there were still the three he'd yet to touch. Said three were closing in on his position, the first of them screaming, sword raised and ready to split Jack down the middle, but he wasn't who Jack was focusing on, it was the two behind the man that had caught Jack's attention. Jack waited a second or so, just so they'd get close enough, then he crouched as low as he could and propelled himself into the air, spinning forward as he did so, his lithe frame not weighing him down much. Jack soared over the first man who craned his neck to keep the skeleton in sight.

The second pirate saw this and looked up, his reward catching him unawares as Jack stretched his legs and painfully planted his landing in the man's face. The pirate came crashing down, and Jack tumbled forward across the ground as he did so. Jack stuck out a leg with his back on the ground as he turned, the heel of said leg dug into the stomach of the third pirate, knocking the air out him.

Jack quickly got his feet under him, stood up, and turned on the spot. He turned in time to see the pirate he leapt over swinging wide at him. Jack kicked upwards, catching the man by surprise as the move popped the blade out of his hand. Keeping his leg raised, Jack used his base leg hop a step forward and brought his raised leg down like an axe, cracking the pirate's collarbone.

Jack smiled at himself for how well he was doing. By his timing, he now had to contend with the two pirates he had flipped earlier. Unfortunately, Jack was not as fast as he thought, and his timing not as accurate. Jack had just enough time to turn around and do nothing as one of the two previously mentioned pirates took a running baseball swing at Jack with his sword.

WHOP!

Sword made a sickening sound as it cleaved through the neck of Jack Skellington, silencing the air. Jack's body fell in a heap like a ragdoll, as the skull clattered and rolled nearby.

"Finally," Hook muttered, annoyed that it took his men so long to deal with a single enemy. Hook's men gathered around the prize that was Jack's skull, the one who separated it from the rest of the skeleton had earned the right to claim it as his own. The man picked it up as the rest gathered round to study it in detail. The champion had been perturbed disturbed, since the swing of his blade, although clearly killing, felt as if he had hit nothing. But he shrugged it off, dead was dead wasn't it?

The pirates all pressed in to look at the skull, amazed that something so frail had caused them such trouble. They gazed intently at Jacks head, seeing no sign of the spark of awareness it'd possessed mere moments before. Even when a few had been so bold as to stick their fingers into the eye sockets, nothing.

"RAAAAARGH HA HA HA!"

Suddenly, the flat teeth in Jack's head became very sharp, as he twisted his face into the most frightening the men had ever seen. His banshee like laughter and scream cut through them like wind off of a jagged frozen glacier. The pirates freaked out and dropped the skull, a few of them falling flat on their asses as they struggled to get away from the skull on the ground which continued to laugh like a mad man. The heart rates of Hook's men continued to sky rocket as their attention was drawn to Jack body. It sprang lithely to it's feet and started running at them jerkily, the bones clanking loudly as the bumped next to each other as it made it's horrifying, awkward and disjointed rush towards them. It stopped moving once all of Hook's men started screaming and making a mad dash to get away from the horror that was Jack Skellington.

Captain Hook scowled as his men ran around him in order to flee back to whence they came. He'd see to those wretches proper, their days were now numbered, but only after he dealt with this troublesome skeleton. "If you want something done right…" he growled low to himself, "Smee!"

"Y-y-yes captain?" the stout first mate stammered, standing by Hook's side more out of fear than any sense of loyalty he may have possessed, having decided to fear the wrath of the devil he knew as opposed to the wrath of the one he didn't.

"Return to the ship," Hook ordered. Time had proven that Smee was more of a hazard than a help to whatever side he was on in a fight. Sadly, Hook was certain that Jack would not accept the dolt into his ranks at that time. But no matter the reason, Smee was just glad he was given permission to get the hell out of there.

Hook glared at the skeleton as it attached it's body to it's head once more. Jack looked at the man and asked, "Do we really need to do this? We can both walk away from this right now and neither of us will get hurt."

To this, the sharp corners of the captain's mouth turned upwards in a rather sinister and malevolent smile, "Now, now Mr. Skellington, if I did that, I wouldn't be able to properly face my men. I can't very well kill them for doing something I did myself…well, I suppose I could, but it more a matter of principle. The men would lose faith you see."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Well my parrot took ill recently, so I've been taking it out on everyone else. Not to mention when I was younger my mother didn't hold me enough, that and I've got a terrible toothache. Blah, blah, never knew my father, blah, blah. Look, we don't all damn night, so I'd like to get straight to it, if that suits you."

"You're really not going to go away on you own are you?" Jack asked disappointedly as he got into a wide fighting stance."

"…No." Captain Hook answered wolfishly as he unsheathed his sword.

The two ran at each other, victory assured in each of their minds. Once Hook got in range, Jack shot his left leg out high and to the right, in the same exact manner as he had when he first faced the captain's men. And just like the initial encounter, Jack cut it across with the intent of striking his opponent's head. Jack however hit nothing but air as Hook dodged the blow by bending backwards, feeling the wind of the attacks rush by his nose. Jack was not dismayed however by this fact, Hook's head was not his real target, he just needed to get momentum for his next move. The skeleton spun with kick, bending his root leg so that his right glided above the ground as he spun in his attempt to sweep the captain's legs out from under him. Hook however saw this and managed to jump the attack. After hitting nothing but air not once but twice, Jack rooted his right leg and began to become upright, shooting his bony claw towards Hook's sword wielding hand in an attempt to wrest the weapon away from the opposition before it could be used against him. However, before the skeleton could make a successful grab, Hook brought down the appendage for which he was most famous for, and used the crude prosthetic to twist Jack hand away, puncturing the Pumpkin King's shirt and coat sleeve as he did so.

Jack stepped back in order to compose a new sequence of attacks. After three failed attacks, Jack was beginning to doubt his preconceptions of his own success. Sadly, things did not continue to go Jack's way. Quite the opposite in fact, as Hook saw Jack backup and began to press the offensive. Hook's style of attack had no style, it merely consisted of a savage slashing to the left and the right, back and forth. But while the captain lacked grace, skill, or any semblance of technique, he made up for it in speed. The attack kept Jack backing up, and it was so constant and fast that all he could do was reflexively dodge or deflect the slashes, leaving him no time to try and formulate a plan of attack. It was fortunate that Jack was nothing but bones, since a couple of time over the course of the fight, Hook would've easily slashed the skeleton's wrists and throat if he'd possessed either.

As it was however, Jack was still fighting a losing battle. With him constantly on the defense and being backed up step by step, it was a mere matter of time before Jack would get backed up into a tree or trip, and Hook knew it. Jack then began to time Hook's slashes, what he was about to attempt was risky, but it was his only option at this point. Jack deflected one of Hook's left swings and ducked the blade as it swung back to the right. Getting low fast, Jack scooped up some dirt and leaves from the forest floor, not an easy task considering the state of Jack's hands, and threw the mass up into Hook's face, causing the captain to flinch.

That moment of clarity and pause was all Jack needed. Jack did a forward somersault into the air, sticking his right leg out at the leap's summit. He descended like a javelin with the express intention of bringing his foot down in just the right spot he needed to dislocate Hook's sword wielding arm. As it turned out, Hook was quicker to recover from the distraction than Jack had anticipated. The pirate brought the flat of his blade up to block Jack's airborne attack, even going so far as to further brace the blade by bring his hook up to the back of it. Due to this, not only was Jack's attack a complete failure, but the angle at which Jack hit the sword completely threw off Jack's sequence of actions, making him botch the way in which he intended to land. Jack fell backwards, stretching out his hands to catch the ground in some way that'd let him recover from this fiasco. But before his bony fingers could touch the blackened foliage along the drab forest floor, Captain Hook delivered a kick to the small of the skeleton's back. The kick completely robbed Jack of any possible means of gracefully recovering from his failed attempt, as it landed him face down several feet away from the captain.

"Please," Hook snorted, unimpressed, as he slowly stepped towards Jack, "I fend off aerial attacks from people who are truly capable of flight on a daily basis, your cheap acrobatics are nothing to me." Hook then raised his sword, and ran towards Jack, with the express intention of ripping the skeleton to shreds. Fortunately, before Hook could bring down the proverbial axe, Jack got his hand under himself and spread his legs. Leaning forward up and lifting his legs into the air, Jack kicked out to the side, becoming a whirling blur of black and white as he spun on the ground performing a superb windmill. The spinning attack didn't hit Hook, but it was more than enough to keep the captain at bay. Jack spun faster and faster until his heel caught on the ground and, due to his considerable momentum and light frame, sent him spinning to his feet.

"…Alright," Hook began, "I'll at least admit that you certainly have more style than the brat."

Jack ran forward, and Hook raised his sword once again, bringing it down diagonally towards the skeleton. Jack ducked the blade, spinning and raising his leg in order to deliver a spinning back kick to the captain's face. Infuriated and quick to recover, Hook crouched low and lunged forward in order to thrust his blade deep into Jack's chest, grinning savagely at his own success. Now, while this has certainly proven to be fatal for every number of those Captain Hook had felled before, Lost Boy, mermaid, indian, and even pirate alike, such was not the case with Jack. Jack, being a skeleton and nothing more, lacked lungs, heart, and many other vital organs which made a typically fatal attack nothing more than a simple case of something getting stuck in his ribcage.

Using this golden opportunity to his favor, Jack grabbed Hook by the wrist. The skeleton then pulled up and twisted the captain's remaining hand away from the saber. Frantic, now that his weapon was removed from his grasp, Hook raised his sharpened prosthetic to strike at the skeleton. However, his attempts at self defense were foiled, as his opponent wrapped a bony leg behind his own and placed a palm to his nose. All that it took was a push to knock the captain off his legs and on his butt. By the time he looked up to glare at Jack, he was staring at the tip of his own blade.

"This ends now," Jack sternly stated, giving Hook an absolutely unforgiving scowl.

Hook, at seeing that the cause was lost, knocked the sword tip to the side, and took a page from Jack's book by throwing dirt into the skeleton's face. Jack flinched due to the sod being thrown into his face, and by the time he laid his sockets on Hook once more, the pirate was off and running.

"Oh no you don't," Jack vowed. He then gave chase after the rouge captain.

Jack's run after the captain should have ended quickly. While Hook did have superior speed when it came to hand to hand, Jack had never met anyone who could match his speed in footwork, his knowledge of the woods and the length of legs only adding to his advantage in the chase. However, it was not The Pumpkin King's intention to actually catch this man. Jack had dealt with Hook's sort before. Hook was like Oogie, simply besting them in physical confrontation was not enough. Jack intended to follow Hook back to wherever he and his men came from, and scare them half to their graves or further. He would drive home the fact that this was his home, and they were not welcome here.

They ran through the woods, and by the time they made it to where they were going, it was Jack's turn to be shocked and afraid. What Hook had lead him to, where they had gone, was not anything Jack had ever seen before. It was a crack in the air, as if the air was a jigsaw puzzle with a single piece was missing. And from this crack, a wholly unnatural and frightening phenomenon, and electric blue light poured. It was into this thing that Hook had run headlong at and leapt into, disappearing instantly.

Some time later…

"Here you go," Sally said cheerily, handing Jack his shirt and coat, all punctures and cuts from dealing with Hook now gone.

"Hm?...Oh yes, thank you Sally," Jack said distractedly, taking his clothes from the ragdoll and putting them on. After Hook had gone through the anomaly, Jack returned to Halloween Town , to see who needed help, snuff out fires, and of course to get Dr. Finkelstein. Currently he, Finkelstein, and his assistant, Sally, were out in the woods, studying the crack. Or to be more accurate, the doctor was studying the tear, while Jack and Sally waited for him to say something. For the last hour or so, Finkelstein circled the crack from his wheelchair, opened his head a few time to pick his brain for any significant ideas, had none, and stayed silent.

"How are you Jack?" Sally asked.

"I'm fine," Jack said reassuringly, placing his bony claws lightly on Sally's shoulders. "Would've been a lot worse off I didn't have these," Jack said, clicking his metal tap shoes together. As skilled as he was, Jack was still just a skeleton, making him far more frail and fragile than the average enemy. If it weren't for the shoes and the weight they carried, all his kicks could have very well shattered his own legs. He'd have to remind himself to get something for his hands as well, so incase of another emergency he could at least throw a punch.

"Jack?" called a voice from behind the skeleton. Jack turned to see a well dressed portly man with cone shaped head that bore a face on either side, one ecstatic, the other dismayed. This was the mayor. The mayor was about to address Jack further, but the crack caught his attention, causing him to stare at it cautiously with his woeful face.

"Yes mayor?" Jack asked, shaking the short abomination from his glaring.

The mayor then switched to his joyful face with a cranking sound, and said, "I am pleased to inform you that after taking stock of the town and it's citizens, that we have suffered no casualties. I shudder to think what might've been without you here to stop them."

Jack breathed a sigh of relief, "How is everyone?"

"Well," the mayor began, switching back to his other face to take up a look of deep contemplation, "More than a few houses were burned badly, so some will need to live with others, and rebuilding should take months. The wolfman had his arm lopped, but since they didn't use silver, it should grow back in a few weeks. Also, the clown had his face torn off, but I believe that was a preexisting condition."

"So everyone should be alright?" Sally asked.

"Well," the mayor said as he switched to his happy face and smiled, "…yes, actually."

"What were they like?" Dr. Finkelstein asked without taking his spectacled eyes away from the crack.

"Excuse me?" The mayor asked, perplexed.

"Jack, what were the people who attacked us like?"

Jack stopped and pondered a moment, "They weren't from the normal world."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, from the few times I've been there, the things the weapons they had were more advanced. These men used swords, not to mention their style of dress was not like anything I'd seen before."

"Are you sure?"

Jack gave it a hard thought before answering, "I'm positive. Those men were not from the normal world."

"Father," Sally began, "What is this?"

"Well," the doctor began raising his glasses in order to rub his eyes, "I'll need to begin experiments in order to test it, but my hypothesis is that this is a gateway."

"Like the holiday woods?" Jack asked.

"In the capacity that both have the potential to transport one or several; things from one place to another, but that is where the similarities end. This gateway, this tear, is an abomination, an unnatural occurrence."

"But what could do something like this?" Sally asked, just barely grasping the concept that something like this was in existence.

"I do not know. The other planes of existence, the places beyond normal world, beyond the Holiday Woods, are separated by extremely powerful and old forces, forces so great that the inhabitants of these different places are probably unaware of the existence of a place beyond their own. And for something to oppose those forces, to overcome them, whether by intentional means or accident, even for a little bit, takes a misuse or powerful saturation of some great and terrible power."

"So it's nothing to worry about?" Jack asked, his mind already beginning to whir with ideas for possible uses or themes the tear could hold for the festivities next Halloween.

"Quite the contrary," Finkelstein stated, his face, as impossible as it sounds, becoming more grim and foreboding than the usual fare, "Whatever is causing this, if it continues at it's current strength, or worse, increases in strength, it has the potential to completely tear asunder the very fabric of the boundaries which separates all dimensions, causing them all to collapse on each other, resulting in untold amounts of devastation and havoc."

"So that's…bad?" The mayor asked, switching to his pale face, confused.

"Very."

KRA-KOOM!

There was a great gust of wind as the crack began to suck in surrounding objects. Leaves, dirt, braches, everything.

"We should get out of here!" the doctor yelled above the roar of the wind, as the crack began to pull him towards itself. The mayor, in an uncharacteristic act of heroism, rushed to grab Finkelstein's wheelchair, then the four of them tried to make a break for it. It was easy at first, they made quite a bit of headway, so much so that they could make out the glow of the lights from Halloween Town . But soon the crack began to pick up power, as they ran, the four soon had to contend against fiercer obstacles, as branches and stones became logs, boulders, and the very trees themselves. Even the earth beneath their feet opposed them as it slid towards the terrifying blue light.

Jack, for the first time in a very, very long time, experienced fear. The exhilarating pull on his chest, the clutch of dread in the pit of his stomach, the catch in his throat from surprise, the wavering uncertainty that took his heart, it all would have been quite refreshing had the situation not been so dire. Jack looked to his fellows and saw something far too horrifying and terrible to occur to be appropriately expressed by any mortal words from one to another.

Finkelstein and the mayor were making good ground, despite the terrain of the forest floor and the shortness of the mayor's legs, but they were no the ones in immediate danger. What demanded his attention was the fact that Sally's leg caught on an old and twisted root which reached above the ground. The ragdoll fell with an, "Oh." Not that of genuine fear, or true dismay, but of mild surprise.

Jack stopped his own flight and rushed to the lady's side and helped her up. It truly was remarkable. In times when things got bad, and they did get bad, usually just before they got worse, Sally never truly despaired, not since a nightmare so very long ago. Jack never truly understood why Sally could take moments like these in stride with a half smile of pride. Somehow it never truly connected to him that it was what he was doing at that moment that gave her such confidence. The idea that no matter the situation, Jack Skellington would come find her. Then, with a style and flare that no one could even hope to imitate or replicate, they'd pull through fine together, always together. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times.

While Jack was busy helping Sally to her feet, he was struck in the chest by a flying brach. The blow was by no means powerful enough to break any of the bones which made up The Pumpkin King, but it was strong enough to knock him off his feet. Jack was actually lifted up off his feet and…well that's just the thing, he never made it to the forest floor. The suction of the rift caught Jack's light frame and pulled him fastly into the abyss.

"JACK NO!" Sally shrieked as Jack flew towards the rapidly closing phenomenon.

Upon seeing that the crack was in fact sealing up, and increasing it's pull all the more for it, Jack closed his eye sockets and prayed. He was not of any particular faith, as his dominion has changed meaning, purpose, and faiths, as the centuries passed by. But he did pray, for something or someone, to whomever or whatever held dominion over this…thing, to stop it. To close the crack and make everything right in the world once again. Then, as spectacular as it may sound, it did, the rift sealed up.

With Jack on the other side.

Jack Skellington, knowing that he'd been flung into the abyss, opened his eyes, and immediately regretted doing so. The place he'd been transported to was frightening and far too strange…even to a skeleton of his distinct tastes.

It was a strange place this void, this world between worlds. Jack floated, for there was no earth to which his feet could ground themselves to, at least non that affected him. There was the same blue light all around him as before, but that was not all. In addition to himself and the refuse from his own world, there was a great deal of wonders. There were giants who were so gargantuan that they could eat mountains as one would eat a Turkish delight, schools of fish who swam this way and that inside orbs of water that had become misplaced in this in-between place. Entire tracks of land that were by some miracle stable enough to allow the indigenous life forms to continue their lives on their villages undeterred, yet still quite disturbed. And there were beings so strange that they defied any comprehension or description, so much so that Jack forced himself to look away for fear of going mad. And despite all odds, Hook was there, floating in the blue abyss, swearing vengeance upon a great deal of names and things, Jack's own name being included among them.

But more miraculous than the other beings and objects that had come to be within this place of nowhere at all, was the rifts. Tears and cracks, much like that which Jack himself had gone through were scattered throughout, incalculable in number, like multicolored stars across a blue night's sky. They looked in and opened up in worlds and places Jack never even dreamed could exist. From these places poured jewels, and lava, and sand, and ships, fields, and stars, and just about anything that could be named or imagined. These windows into the worlds would sometimes open and closed so fast that if one were to blink they'd never know, it was from one such place that a great blackness snatched Hook and disappeared from sight, that frightened Jack. There were other windows that were open for so long, pouring the so much of the essence of that world into this place that Jack was certain that more of that world was here than it was in it's original place.

It was beautiful, this void. It was terrible, this nothing place. It was wondrous, this world between worlds. It was frightening, this universe of nowhere at all. But as many different and odd things this place held, terrifying and beautiful as they may be, Jack found that as the hours passed, he'd have to get used to them. Because as far he could tell, there was no way out of this place.

"Ah," came a cool and sly voice, like that of a great serpent creeping upon it's prey, "You'll do fine."

Jack looked all around for the source, but couldn't find it.

"You have exactly what I need," although the voice spoke in a whisper, it surrounded him and pervaded from deep within his own head. It was feminine, a woman's voice, no doubt about that, but far too predatory to be truly benevolent. "You have just the right touch of destiny."

KRA-KOOM!

There was a blinding flash of light and Jack found himself kneeling down in the grit and grime of some dank alley. He looked around himself, wiping the muck from his knees as he did so. It was night time, that was clear enough from the gloom and the open air. But he needed to look at the cars, street lights, and the dress of a few passerby to finally realize where he'd been sent. This was the normal world, he'd realize it anywhere.

He was fortunate to land in a place such as this, since all he needed to do was find a cemetery, or a abandoned house, or something else deeply tied to his realm, and he'd be home in just few hours time. And he could feel it calling to him, the bitter winds, the sensations of dread. But along with the calling of Halloween Town was something else, it was the need for the familiar, but it was urgent none the less. He couldn't explain why, but he needed to find whatever was pulling him that way, to satisfy the inexplicable desire to get somewhere he'd never been before, or to get to something. He could've ignore it, should've ignored it, but where would the fun in that be?

So Jack did the only thing he could do at that moment. He walked.


End file.
